


Come From the Holy Fire

by JulyFlame



Series: Consume My Heart Away [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Butterfly Effect, Canon-Typical Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Dimension Travel, Dreams, Gen, Major Character Injury, Meta, Military Realism, Ninja Politics, POV First Person, POV Third Person, Reincarnation, Self-Insert, Teenagers are Teenagers Even When They're Child Soldiers, The Isekai Truck Didn't Finish the Job, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, This is not a "rationalist" fic, Transmigration, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, We're starting off on track for canon but everything gets derailed pretty much immediately, Work In Progress, Worldbuilding, actions have consequences
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 112,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25072597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulyFlame/pseuds/JulyFlame
Summary: "There was a lone red and white uchiwa fan on the building ahead. Not right. Something in my brain caught on it, and I found myself slowing down, before I stopped entirely to stare." A disaffected adult begins to have repeat lucid dreams set in the world of Naruto. It'd be less embarrassing if it were as anyone except Sasuke. A twist on the usual isekai reincarnation. SI/OC-Insert.
Series: Consume My Heart Away [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024299
Comments: 540
Kudos: 767
Collections: A Collection of Beloved Inserts





	1. Way by Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> Finally ended up diving into writing for this fandom.

There was a lone red and white uchiwa fan on the building ahead. _Not right._ Something in my brain caught on it, and I found myself slowing down, before I stopped entirely to stare. The light from the full moon above painted everything in sharp, looming contrasts. _Not right._ Even the door on the building I had stalled in front of was bigger than it should have been. _Not right._

I held my hands out and looked at them. _Not right._ _Not right._ They were tiny, and especially pale in the moonlight. They weren't just _childlike_ , these were the hands of an actual child; these were definitely not my own. Long black sleeved shirt, with a wide collar that I could feel fanning out around my neck. Looking down, I could see that I was wearing plain white shorts that ended above skinny knees, with wrappings on each leg that disappeared out of sight under the top cuff of study-looking ankle high boots with open toes. Being suddenly child-size aside, this was nothing I would ever wear.

I was dreaming, I decided.

Just like that, everything else fell into place. The unease and sense of wrongness that had been building up released, and I could feel myself, well, not feel any less _off_ , but at least more sorted. I knew what was happening now.

I was asleep, dreaming that I was walking right into the Uchiha massacre's aftermath. And that I was Sasuke.

As far as mixing potentially shitty, embarrassing dreams and nightmares went, this was absolutely a masterstroke in my subconscious' continued war against every single thing I've ever done or had interest in, though to be fair in this case I practically asked for it this time. I was never mixing melancholy binge drinking of cheap, extremely questionable alcohol with nostalgic anime marathons again. I bet this is why that bottle had been priced down for clearance. I should have known better than to trust something on sale by that much.

Not that being aware of my follies helped me much, here. Or that I was dreaming, for that matter. For all that the idea of lucid dreaming appealed to me and was something my therapist even encouraged after I had brought it up once in counseling, the fancy, cool parts of lucid dreaming, where you could control what happened? That part was beyond me. I couldn't even persuade my own dreams or the figures in them to do what I wanted.

So, I was left with two options: I could either get out of Dodge, metaphorically speaking, and probably spend the rest of this dream effectively going in circles and just wait it out, or ram myself straight into and through the inevitable nightmare part and get it over with.

I kept walking forward, letting the little part of my mind that was still keyed into the dream lead me to where Sasuke was supposed to go. This was honestly not the smart choice, but, well. That was also something I was supposed to be working out in counseling. But as far as nightmares went, though, knowing this was just a dream defanged it pretty thoroughly. The dark, empty streets and occasional sign of violence were just stage dressing, and nothing said I had to play the role I was in. The Sasuke in the anime and manga might have been a scared little boy, but this was a dream and I wasn't Sasuke. I refused to be afraid of a nightmare framing itself like this.

Maybe if I kept telling myself that it would work.

After a while, and coming across more bodies than there definitely had been in the anime— _thanks, brain_ — I entered the road in front of Sasuke's family home. The cracked uchiwa on the wall across from the front door was an ominous reminder of what set this off in the series.

I already knew where the confrontation would be and the tension was nearly palpable just from the lack of light, high shadows, and being so much smaller than the dream world, but it didn't stop the sense of curiosity swelling at the opportunity to take a look around anyways as I opened the front door and entered. The genkan was neat and tidy looking in the darkness, and nothing at all like a warning sign that murder most foul had happned within the house's walls. I opened the getabako against the wall out of curiosity. Sasuke's parents' own footwear for wearing outside of the house were inside the cabinet, just waiting as if they'd get used again.

Even though a little bit of myself protested against it— _Manners aren't going to really matter here—_ I didn't bother to go barefoot, and instead pushed onward into the rest of the house, which was just as eerily silent as everything else had been since the dream started. The absolute stillness of everything was highlighted by what moonlight entered through the windows, and even though the horrific moments in the streets outside hadn't gotten to me, the splashes of blood, the occasional silhouettes of slumped bodies inside their homes, and the spray of kunai and shuriken in walls and on the ground hadn't done anything but make me remind myself that it was a nightmare, of course it was supposed to be terrible, and it would be better if I stopped letting myself look at _every_ pool of blood I saw, that sensation of everything being permanently stopped was what made me feel truly uneasy.

Finally, I forced myself to go onto the engawa. It was a short walk from here to the solid looking double doors at the other end of the veranda. I paused right outside of them, before shaking my head. I _already_ knew what was going to be on the other side, why was I hesitating? Before I let myself come up with any kind of stupid side-thoughts to answer that, I pushed both doors inward and stepped in.

Two bodies were sprawled over on the room's tatami, the pools of still blood beneath them meeting to join into one. A figure in armor stood on the other side of the room, just barely in the shadows, the hilt of his sword jutting above one shoulder. Itachi. A mix of sympathy and annoyance welled up in me. Everything about the two Uchiha brothers in the show had been tragedies based in wrong or manipulated decisions.

"Do you feel stupid and regret it yet?" I couldn't stop myself from asking. In Sasuke's young, clear voice the question sounded absurd.

Judging from the fact Itachi was only staring and hadn't started his torment of his younger brother yet, the whole dream wasn't exactly expecting that either.

"You aren't _dumb_. You could have bought more time somehow, even without Shisui, if you ignored Obito and Danzo," I rambled on. "But that's not really fair to you at all, I guess, huh? I mean, even for being a hyped up genius according to Kishi, being manipulated by a guy who's been gaslit to the point he's willing to destroy the world over a crush and dealing with someone like Danzo who's had decades of experience in pressing on people's weak points is a lot for a thirteen year old on top of the clan coup and your dad's expectations, isn't it?"

"How do you know that name?" I was no longer standing on the ground, but suddenly held up against the door, pinned high enough by his forearm that Itachi was looking me directly in the eye without looking down. It happened so suddenly I didn't even see him move, much less grab me. The force was enough that I actually felt winded, realistically so.

"Because this isn't really happening," I told him.

Itachi's eyes shifted, from their dark color to red, visible in the low light. The sharingan. And then, again so quickly I couldn't even see, I felt the sensation of blood welling from one hand. Itachi's loose hand was now gripping a kunai. I wasn't the only one bleeding. Did he think this was a genjutsu? I didn't get the opportunity to ask or wonder further.

"Mangekyō sharingan." Its distinct tri-pronged shape blossomed in Itachi's eyes, and he, and the surrounding room, disappeared. The light from the red full moon above painted everything in sharp, looming contrasts, dark and light inverted, all the color sapped except for the red.

The Uchiha district was no longer empty, but it was clear it was not going to stay populated by the living for long. Itachi was mowing them down with a heartless intensity, unstoppable. Even the fully grown ninja who could get to their weapons were nothing against him. Over and over, it kept going on.

But despite all of the disturbing aspects of it, the fact that this barely teenaged boy was showcasing these murders, with some of them pushed to the fore, over and over… I didn't feel the same connection to these people that he was expecting. This was an unsettling nightmare, but it wasn't a fine tuned nightmare for _me_. The high contrast of imagery and brutal violence only reminded me of every dramatic action flick and slasher film I had ever been dragged along unwillingly to see, a spectacle for the audience.

At least, I kept telling myself that. It made me feel off-balance, uneasy. Something in my head kept chiming in that _this_ was what a real murder looked like when it wasn't an actor having to play pretend, that this wasn't the eased away and sanitary death of my grandfather in the hospital. My stomach roiled.

Just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. My stomach didn't appreciate this as the scenery and perspective changed once more from standing and being forced to watch multiple gruesome murders in contrasting shades to being pinned.

I threw up, vomit splashing onto Itachi's armor, pants, and his feet.

Itachi grimaced, backing away, letting me fall to the floor. "Otouto..." In his shock at being vomited on, it looked like he had forgotten the facade he had been so determined to put up before this. This wasn't the sort of derailment I had expected. Neither did this dream version of Itachi, apparently.

"Sorry," I muttered, automatically. I couldn't remember if I had ever tasted the aftermath of puking in a dream before. Was taste even a thing in my dreams before? I wiped my mouth out as best as I could on a sleeve before I stood up, stomach still queasy. "Are you still going to try and pretend you did this just to become stronger?"

He stared at me. "You shouldn't know any of this."

"I already said, this isn't really happening. This is just a story. You convince your little brother you hate him and that he has to kill you to prove his strength because of what? Your own guilt and making sure he doesn't turn against the village? Between that and getting set to stake Akatsuki out you've set yourself up for more than you can handle. Passive suicide is still suicide, even with mind games included."

"What would you do, then?" The staring had eased into something more steady, less caught unawares. Like he was discussing something completely mundane, taking advice into consideration.

"Not get into it with Orochimaru. Maybe figure out how to prevent him from killing the Third? Actually get regular medical care to potentially prevent getting terminally ill?" That was simultaneously the stupidest and yet most sympathetic thing about Itachi right there, to me. "Not dying before everything goes to hell is probably a real good idea, too, since Kabuto goes nuts with the reincarnation technique," I couldn't help but add, after a moment. I couldn't think of anything else that Itachi had really been involved in directly. Mostly he had just been an ominous target for Sasuke, another example of Konoha doing its young geniuses wrong. A tragedy.

"I'll consider it." Itachi approached me. And then, unexpectedly— _I should have known_ — he poked my forehead. "Get stronger anyways, Sasuke." The sharingan appeared in his eyes again, and then there was nothing.

* * *

I woke up sore and in pain, bleary and headachey, and still nauseated, with one hand in a death grip around my phone, sprawled over my couch in the most uncomfortable position I had been in since my accident. My shoulder throbbed, angrier than usual, the pain reaching down into my arm, all the way to my fingers, and radiating out into the rest of my back. I groaned as I pushed myself into a sitting position with my good side and rubbed the leftover sleep from my eyes.

The empty wine bottle on the coffee table stood next to a glass that was still about a quarter full. Besides the gentle noise of the table fan on the side table, it was quiet, and I was alone. My laptop was on the other couch, the ancient copy of _No Country For Old Men_ I had subtly snuck from home sitting on top of it, the red sky of its cover mocking me.

The onerous responsibility of grading— recording, really— the online responses of freshmen taking a required beginning English class awaited. All I had to do was make sure a response was made, it was the length it was supposed to be, and it wasn't plagiarized. They either did it right or not. A simple task, acceptable for a grad student serving as a teaching assistant, and so far less tortuous than I heard from others in the grad association who were helping with math classes. While I didn't really have to get this done until Monday, it was going to bother me until I completed it.

Instead, I chose to ignore it in favor of getting something to settle my stomach instead. I didn't want to think about McCarthy's flair for writing violence right now, while mulling over the dream I just woke up from.

It lurked in the back of my mind the whole weekend.


	2. Hear the Bells, pt 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A second dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to L-I-G-H-T for the beta read for this chapter. 
> 
> 10 Dec 2020: Have gone through and cleaned this chapter up for some minor SPaG flubs and clarifications.

"Good morning, Sasuke," a cheerful girl's voice said. _What, it can't be morning_. And then the rest of me caught up. I blinked, and looked down at my hands, clasped. They weren't as small as the last time, but still pale, wrists covered by the blue ties buckled down to keep the white arm warmers from slipping. Another Naruto dream? Really?

And this time, it was the academy. I remembered this episode even, both from watching it the very first time it aired, and many times more during rewatches, most recently just last weekend. Was it something I ate? Did I need to adjust my diet? Go to counseling more?

My contemplations didn't help me any, because the chattering of increasingly angry preteen girls was only becoming louder. Sakura and Ino were at the front of a crowd that was starting to become all the girls in the room. And then, a light thud on the desk in front of me. I looked up. Naruto was squinting at me, way too close for comfort. _Wait, no_.

I was _not_ into having a repeat of that dumb kiss as Sasuke _._ I moved to get out of the way, but it was too late, the kid in the row in front had already shouted, jostling Naruto and— our foreheads crashed together at the headplates. Hard. _For being a dream, that hurt._

"Hey! What's the big deal?" Naruto shouted. The blond had fallen over, and was rubbing one hand to his forehead where he had shoved the hitai-ate up.

"Oh, Sasuke! Are you okay?" Ino. She managed to shove her way past all the other girls, slide in past the desk and pull me back into a sitting position. "Naruto, you can't just be on desks like that!"

"Yeah, Naruto!" Sakura had gone around to the other side. I was now stuck in place between _both_ of the fangirls, and Naruto was sulking on top of the desk. The last time _I_ had ended up in a situation like this was undergrad.

"I didn't even do anything!"

A disgruntled noise rose from somewhere behind us. "This is the last time we're going to be in here, do you really have to make it more of a drag than it already is?"

Ino twisted around to glare daggers at the speaker. "It's not my fault you're so lazy and don't have a romantic bone in your body, Shikamaru!"

On the plus side, my penchant for observing and overthinking to myself quietly wasn't being commented on. Everyone else was also too wound up in themselves.

"And you think Sasuke does? He hasn't replied to any of you." Shikamaru scoffed. Okay, maybe one person noticed. I looked back to stare at him. He had the audacity to look pleased with himself.

"He was probably knocked senseless by Naruto's big head!"

"Ehhh? Sakura, my head isn't that big! Is it?"

I felt fingers grip onto my head from behind. I twisted away from looking back at Shikamaru, raising an arm to bat away the offender. It only made it worse when I got poked in the eye by a slipping finger. "Gah!" _Naruto_. It had to be. "What do you think you're doing!?"

"I'm comparing the size of our heads!" Did he really have to shout so close to my ears?

"You just got me in the eye!" I kept trying to twist around and move to bat him off, but he was frustratingly clingy. Was this how he managed to graffiti the carved hokage faces? Climbing skills like this?

"I can't measure right if you don't hold still!" Knees dug into my sides.

"Get! Off!" The words were punctuated by my attempts to elbow him, and when that didn't work, smash him into the desk. Still no luck. Was he a limpet or something? Did he have a mountain goat in his ancestry? Was that the secret behind the Fourth?

"Nooo! That's his best feature! They're so deep and thoughtful looking!" Ino was fine with beating Naruto up with the other girls, but that was the best she could come up with when he had an active death grip on my head? Really?

How did this dream end up devolving _worse_ than the actual show?

"Shannaro!" _She wouldn't._ I suddenly had a bad feeling about this.

Naruto's head smashed into the back of mine. I went over the edge of the bench, falling onto the floor. I couldn't believe she did it. The only upside was that Naruto had finally let go after Sakura's attack.

It was time for a tactical retreat, away from this nonsense. When I got up and brushed myself off, I ignored both of the girls' protests and Naruto, pushed my way out and walked away to sit somewhere else _away_ from persistent fangirls. I ended up sitting next to Shino; of all the possible options in the room, he was the only one the preteen fangirls were staying clear of. Thankfully, none of them closed in. A few even whined.

"Great kunoichi they'll make if they're creeped out by a classmate," I said, under my breath.

Shino turned to stare at me. "You think they find me that off putting?"

I forgot he wasn't only close enough to overhear that, but how much hearing something like that would have sucked at this age. I also felt a vague sense of unease at the idea of trying to lie. "Probably, but they're all vain and self-centered."

"Good," Shino said, satisfied. And then he turned to look at the front of the classroom again.

...What just happened?

The door opened, and Iruka walked in, a clipboard in his hand. Team assignments. Even as I found myself wondering what the other names were that were skipped over for the sake of speeding the story along, looking at Iruka threw me. As a character, he was set up as a responsible adult, an experienced teacher and even a father figure of sorts to Naruto. But... he really was still baby-faced, even with the scar bisecting his nose. If he showed up as a student to the class I was a teaching assistant for myself, I wouldn't have blinked twice. But here, he was actually in charge of this rowdy bunch of kids. To them, he would count as old, which made _me_ feel old. I had seniority on him, and maybe even Kakashi. It was a strange contrast compared to right now. Just the weirdness of a dream.

"Alright, alright, quiet," he finally called out, and there was a short scramble as people moved to be behind desks. Even from sitting near Shino, I could see Ino and Sakura's sour expressions as they realized they had ended up as deskmates with Naruto between them instead. The blond was too busy mooning over the fact he was sitting next to Sakura to realize neither girl was happy with the circumstances.

"As of today, you are all ninjas. To get here, you faced difficult trials and hardships. But that's nothing," Iruka said, proudly, looking at all of us. I didn't even belong here and I felt pleased at his earnest praise. I could see the impact he had on the students here. All of the ones in view, even Naruto, were sitting a bit straighter, not wanting their sensei to be disappointed in them. For all I knew, though, Shikamaru was probably still slouching. "What comes next will be far more difficult. Now you're only genin, first level ninjas. All the genin will be grouped into three man squads. Each squad will be led by a jōnin, an elite ninja."

I could hear small gasps from throughout the classroom, particularly from the fangirls. Ino and Sakura were already glaring daggers at each other.

"We want each squad to have a balance of strengths and weaknesses, so that's how we set them up. I will now announce the squads." As Iruka began to list team one, I gazed around to see what the various reactions were. None of these kids really showed up again after this in the show, but going off the threats Kakashi had made, about getting recycled back into the academy, that probably made sense, though I really didn't get the point behind throwing them back when they graduated. What would a genin even do if they were kept back? Naruto's own surprise had to have meant they weren't kept with the general student pool. Actually, just how big _was_ the Academy supposed to be?

"...And now, team seven." Did I really just space out through the first seven teams, or was it something my head didn't even bother to fill in? "Haruno Sakura... Uzumaki Naruto—" A loud cry and a "Yes!" interrupted him briefly before he continued on, "—And Uchiha Sasuke."

Sakura cheered as nearly every other girl in here wailed at their misfortune.

"What! Iruka-sensei, how could I end up with that loser!?" There we go. That was supposed to be after all of the squad announcements, but I guess not getting beaten into a pulp meant he was more willing to complain sooner. Naruto was about to get embarrassed in front of the whole class. Watching it on the screen was one thing, but I didn't want to even dream about being in the same room as that much second-hand embarrassment.

"Does it really matter?" I said out loud, before Iruka could explain the ranking for teams. Especially when while it might have been the reason Iruka was given, it probably wasn't the actual one. "We're still going to be on the same team as genin, whatever we do, so we're going to have to work together."

"Yeah, right! Like I want to work with you!"

"He's right," Iruka said. He nodded in approval towards me. "Whether you like it or not, you're going to be teammates. As ninja of Konoha, we all have to work together and that means learning in your genin teams is crucial to your future."

Naruto exhaled. "Fine, but it doesn't mean I have to like it!"

I let out a breath in relief. While it was probably impossible to prevent Naruto from making a complete ass of himself all the time, dream or no, it didn't mean I wanted to watch him get completely humiliated.

Iruka continued to read out the rest of the rest of the team assignments. Once he was finally finished, he looked relieved. Did he expect the other assignments to get the same amount of protest or something? "After lunch, you'll meet your new instructors," he finally told us. "You're dismissed until then." Before anyone could even ask him any questions, he left the classroom. Not so fast that he could be accused of bailing on us, but it was definitely fast enough that if anyone had anything to say to him we would have had to chase him down.

What surprised me was that before Iruka got out the door, Naruto was already swinging himself over the side of the desk to go after him. "Hey! Hey! Iruka-sensei! Wait up!"

He didn't wait. It was probably just as well that Naruto bolted after him, door clattering behind him. And then… A shout that was undeniably Naruto, but muffled enough that we couldn't make it out from in here. It had to be about the scores.

I didn't bother to wait. I found myself not wanting to stick around for whatever else Ino and Sakura would have in store, and quickly left the classroom. Not quite as fast as Naruto did in his desire to harass Iruka, but fast enough that I didn't see any of the others in the corridor before I went up the stairs.

It wasn't until I stopped that I found myself concerned. Did I just... I was holding a small wrapped bundle, which when I opened it revealed a cylindrical bento. And I was in the same spot Sasuke was in this part of the story. I hadn't meant to go anywhere in particular, this just happened. Was that going to be the norm with this kind of weird lucid dream that I was beginning to become worried was going to become a pattern?

I huffed, and decided that I didn't want to think about it too much for now. Even if I didn't want to assume that the rest of this dream was going to go like it did in the story, this was still a pretty nice place to look out from. It was a high enough vantage point that I could see the grounds out around the academy, and into the village some.

Looking out, I could see the newly minted Team Asuma (not that they knew it was going to be him) wandering out to sit outside on one of the stairwell platforms. Further below and beyond them on the grounds, Sakura. She was probably looking for Sasuke. For me?

I spied Naruto leaving the building and immediately approached her. I grimaced. I didn't expect it to turn out any way but how it did in the show, but I still watched anyway. Soon enough, he slunked off, completely rejected. Which meant that any time now he was going to come and invade my space up here.

Naruto on his own was too loud for my tastes. I didn't really mind kids, but earlier in the classroom had just reminded me exactly how loud middle schoolers were, and that they didn't fear showing it. And this bunch were able to carry weapons, which carried its own obnoxious factor. The only one of them that probably wouldn't drive me completely crazy was Hinata. Wait. No, that was a lie. She was sweet, but her fangirling was just directed towards Naruto instead. I didn't want to deal with that, either.

I leaned over the window sill. By now Naruto had disappeared from sight, which meant he was probably inside somewhere plotting. I didn't want to deal with him, but it looked like it was going to be inevitable. At least it was a nice day.

Finally, it happened. I hadn't _heard_ him enter, but it was hard to ignore the sudden shout. When I turned away from the window, Naruto was lunging directly at me. I was entirely blank on what Sasuke had done when this happened. I dodged, twisting before he reached me and getting out of the way, only to watch Naruto go flying out the window. He shouted in surprise when he realized what was happening.

I managed to grab one of his feet, doing my best to brace against the wall to not go out through the window too, and was rewarded with a loud thumping crash from making sure I didn't find out how well he'd take a crash landing from this far up as he smashed against the outside wall. Holding onto him was a lot easier than I thought it'd be. "Were you trying to figure out if you could fly?" I couldn't help make the comment.

"That wouldn't have happened if you didn't move!" Naruto complained. His face bore the marks of the outside wall as he pushed against it to look up.

"What, was I supposed to let you knock me through the window instead?" I snarked. I immediately felt guilty. I was an adult. Not actually twelve. I was more mature than to get into a verbal fight with a twelve year old. Especially one like Naruto. Even in a dream. I could do a lot better than this.

"Just help me back up!" He swung his arms.

"What happened to not wanting to be on a team with me?" I couldn't help but ask. Even as I said that, it felt off. It was probably because even though I wasn't Sasuke, I couldn't imagine myself being too excited at being in the same team as Naruto either. I had never liked getting put on team projects with the loud ones, and he was a prime example of those kinds of kids at the worst possible age.

"Hey! You can't just leave me hanging here!"

"I could drop you," I threatened.

"You wouldn't!"

"You sure?" I did my best to adjust the grip I had on one of his legs. And then I let go of the other one. Even with that, it slipped a bit, and I was left holding onto the end of his ankle instead.

"Ah! Okay okay! Let me up!" Naruto panicked, flailing. "I give! You're such a jerk!"

"Yeah, well, payback," I said, muttering. I grabbed both legs again and started the surprisingly difficult task of pulling Naruto back up. It was harder than I thought it would be. Admittedly, it was for one big reason. "Stop wriggling around! What are you, a worm or something?"

"I can't help it, how am I supposed to not deal with getting my face scraped?" he shouted back up.

"By not trying to attack people right in front of windows!"

"Yeah, right! Didn't Iruka-sensei point out it was a good tactic?" he countered. I had no idea. Even so, it wasn't like I wanted to admit it.

"Probably not when you aren't expecting to go out of it!" I stopped, finally, once his legs were fully inside, and shoved so he'd be planted on the floor.

Naruto seemed to have different ideas on when was enough, because just as I did, he grappled the window edge and shoved inward. It was too much force at once, combined.

We crashed to the floor in a tangle. His already wild looking hair looked even crazier from his short time upside down and then this brief tumble. His cheeks bore some scrapes from smacking against the rough outside wall, mixing with the whisker marks. He looked ridiculous, and I ended up snorting in my attempt to stifle a laugh.

"What are you laughing at?" he said, pouting. Crossing his arms only made it harder for me to avoid laughing.

"You! You look all messed up, and this is what you're going to go back to the classroom looking like." I didn't need to bring up the reason why he'd probably not want it— Sakura would no doubt give him an even more frigid reaction if he inevitably tried to awkwardly flirt with her again.

He puffed his cheeks out in indignation, frantically combing his fingers through his hair, resulting in random flattened licks. My expression probably didn't help matters because he gave up with a final tousle that just barely looked better than it had before. "Agh! You ruin everything!"

"I was the one minding my own business when you came in here," I pointed out.

Naruto didn't look impressed at all by my logic. Which, honestly, could have been dream logic at work, or just Naruto being Naruto.

Either way, he was distracted enough that I didn't think I had to worry about his plotting, at least for now. I didn't really want to deal with thinking about the issues with getting tied up.

"Yeah, well, so!" A compelling argument, really. Anything else he was going to say was interrupted by an ominous gurgle and his eyes widening. "Ghhk!"

Oh, I knew what _that_ was about. Dangling upside down out the window and all the moving around probably had sped it up. I had absolutely no interest in getting in the way of that mess.

He clutched his stomach, bolting to his feet. Before I could say anything, he ran for the stairs. I guess that was one way to get rid of Naruto. At least for now. That left the question of what to do next. I didn't _feel_ like I was going to wake up any time soon. From where I was I could see Sakura sitting on a bench.

No. I refused.

I picked up Sasuke's lunch and went to the classroom instead. Sakura was just too much to deal with after the close-Naruto encounter. I didn't want to deal with _more_ preteen drama. Not with this love triangle anyways.

Which seemed to invite only more issues. Not all of the students had left the classroom to eat their lunch or go elsewhere. Hinata was still in there, sitting near the front of the room, near her new teammates. Kiba was lying on top of one of the desks, knees pushed up and together, with Akamaru resting on top of his chest. Shino was barely finishing his lunch. And when Hinata saw me, she blushed. That wasn't a good sign.

"O-oh, Sasuke-kun," she began. "Do you know where Naruto-kun is?" Well, that was a power move for a shy girl like Hinata. I felt bad at even considering not telling her. The sense of guilt was just too strong. I caved.

"He didn't look like he was feeling too well," I said, hedging my bets with something vague that would still get the idea across. "He's probably going to be back in here later."

"Oh," she said, softly. She was clearly disappointed. "I hope he's alright. I wouldn't want him to miss his new teacher." Hinata's utter sincerity was powerful. And way too much.

"It's Naruto," I answered. "I'm sure he's fine." At least, in this case when it was just him drinking spoiled milk. I didn't think anything short of serious injury would really put him down at this point in time, and it's not like I was dreaming anything crazy. Before she could say anything more, I skirted around her to move on.

"Thank you, Sasuke-kun..." However much I wanted to pretend to ignore that, I couldn't, and gave an awkward nod at her. That seemed to pass Hinata's standards, and she went back to Kiba and Shino, who had watched the whole conversation. Shino didn't seem to care, but Kiba was smirking, and I could tell he was already planning on teasing her.

Why couldn't I get away from the preteen drama?

"What do you want with Naruto, Hinata?" Kiba started, a fierce grin on his face.

I really didn't want to watch this happen. While Kiba wasn't a complete and utter jerk in the show, he was absolutely insensitive enough that this was just going to be embarrassing to watch. There was no way for teasing someone sensitive to go well. This was the only plus ending up as Sasuke: not dreaming about being Hinata.

"Don't you think that's her own business?" I muttered. I didn't mean to say that outloud. Kiba still caught it, however, and turned to face me, Akamaru jumping off his knees with a tiny bark as the boy moved to sit up.

"Oh, so it's your business to get involved?"

"She just asked me where he was and I answered," I pointed out. "You're the one who butted in. Are you going to really make this a bad footing for your team, too, when we haven't met any of the jōnin instructors yet?"

God knew that Team Seven under Kakashi was the kind of disaster that could only be put together on purpose. Team Kurenai wasn't nearly as bad but Kiba would definitely make it like that if he kept it up.

"Like you're one to talk," Kiba snorted. "You bailed so fast Sakura started looking all mopey."

"Maybe, but I'm not teasing her. You're the one who should be rethinking their behavior here, not me."

A glance in her direction showed that Hinata was blushing, and only getting redder in the face. She wouldn't actually die of embarrassment if this kept up, right? Or blow up or something? Actually, I didn't want to risk that. "Hinata, do you want to go and look for Naruto with me?" I was going to regret this.

"Ah- I..." She managed to flush even brighter red than she had already become. And then, so quietly I barely could hear her, "Yes. I'd like that."

Kiba's jaw dropped. "Wha- hey!"

Shino managed to give the most meaningful look at Kiba I had ever seen from someone whose eyes you couldn't even see.

I couldn't believe I was going to do this. I walked back over to the door, sliding it open, and tilted my head, waiting for Hinata to come over. "Shino."

"Yes?"

"Think you can get it through Kiba's head what not to say to people you're supposed to work with?"

Kiba looked flabbergasted. "What! You can't take his side!"

I rolled my eyes. "It's not about taking sides, it's about not being insensitive to other people's feelings." I didn't wait to see if Shino was going to actually give a response.

We left just as Kiba started sputtering. I closed the door behind us.

"Y-you really didn't have to say anything..." Hinata said, still flushing brightly.

"He'll get over it," I told her, as I started to walk.

"How are you so sure?"

"Because his head's as thick as Naruto's. He'll be fine," I reassured her.

"Are you sure?" she asked, again.

"Well, if you don't want him to be fine, I guess we could let his mom know. I'm sure she'd have some words for him."

Hinata's eyes widened for a moment in shock, before she caught on that it was a joke. "He was just teasing," she said, finally. She still looked more at ease than she had earlier, though.

"He could have gone about it better," I said, shrugging. The restrooms had to be around here somewhere... but I had no idea where. Was it because I was overthinking it?

"Thank you for speaking up," Hinata said, again so softly I don't think I was supposed to actually hear her.

I didn't really know what to say, so I shrugged.

We turned a corner, heading outside, and I smacked head first into Naruto for what was the third time in a row. Why did that keep happening? I staggered, and he wound up on the floor. He still looked off-color.

"What, you again?" He clearly felt the same way I did over the repeated head knockings. "Watch where you're going!"

I made a face. "We were both going around the corner, no one's at fault here."

Next to me, Hinata had gone totally silent, standing still. Right.

"Hinata was wondering where you were," I said, when it became clear she was doing her best statue impression. Or maybe not the best, because she made the tiniest 'eep' when I said her name.

Naruto was completely oblivious. This was hopeless. "Oh! I was fine! Doing stuff!" he said, as he scrambled to his feet. His posture was suspiciously good, probably from trying to ignore his stomach. I guess he didn't want to expose a perceived weakness like the runs, even if he was utterly clueless that the girl he was talking to had a huge crush on him to the point of it being debilitating. "Got to be prepared for my future ninja career since I'm going to be hokage!"

Hinata blushed. "You'd make a good hokage, Naruto-kun," she managed to say with limited stuttering.

"Believe it!"

This was becoming painful to watch.

"It's about coming on time to head back to the classroom," I said, lying. I didn't actually know when exactly it was supposed to be, but I knew I didn't actually feel like playing at dream matchmaking anymore. Not when it gave me the vaguely uneasy feeling that it just meant it was going to be sprung back on me in return. It seemed inevitable, between the fangirls and repeat headbashing after avoiding Naruto's lips.

"Oh, Sasuke!" I could feel my insides begin to shrivel as Sakura made herself known. Was this my brain twistedly punishing me for pretending to be better than the boy band fangirls when I was in middle school? That I didn't know the difference between N*Sync and the Backstreet Boys? It had to be. "I was looking for you earlier, but I didn't see you!"

"I felt like having lunch alone," I said, avoiding gritting my teeth. Not that I actually ate any of it, but still.

"Oh." Sakura actually looked crestfallen. "I was hoping we could eat lunch together, since we're going to be on the same genin team…"

"We were going to walk back to the classroom together," Hinata spoke up, shyly. "Why don't you join us?"

"Sure!" Almost immediately, Sakura bounced back to cheerfulness to stand next to me, close enough to make me feel uncomfortable.

I had no counter against that. As much as I didn't want Sakura clinging to me, I had even less interest in shooting Hinata down on what was a reasonable suggestion, especially after not quite intentionally giving her a confidence boost. If anyone needed it, it was her.

"Sakura, you can't really want to be next to that guy, do you?" Naruto really _was_ oblivious, wasn't he?

"You're too loud and _immature_ to understand why someone like Sasuke's so cool," Sakura sniped at the blond, as she clamped a hand on my arm. Did Konoha just not teach anyone about personal space?

"I don't think there's anything cool about just staring into space all the time," Naruto grumbled. "And I'm plenty mature!"

"As if!"

I didn't know where to start with breaking up the bickering. Was there even anywhere to start with that? I sighed. "Let's just go back to class."

I think the only one completely happy in the whole group while we walked back was Hinata. She was pleased with walking next to Naruto, who still looked slightly disgruntled at Sakura's attack on his own perceived maturity, even though he was at least able to walk next to her. Sakura's own pleasure at invading my personal space was muted by Naruto's presence. I was too busy being preoccupied by evaluating how much of a personal attack the whole dream was on my being to even contemplate happiness.

For what had been a quick trip out of the classroom, by the time we got back, it had already started to fill up again with its new graduates. It looked like people had moved around to sit near their new teammates. Even next to the room's door it was obvious that the main topic of conversation through the room was what everyone thought their new jōnin-sensei would be like.

Hinata peeled off to rejoin Shino and Kiba— who looked still put out from earlier— but not before she whispered a quiet "Thank you" to me. It was so unexpected I barely caught it.

I shrugged awkwardly in return, before heading for the back row. There was still an open spot near the back corner which would at least make it _harder_ for more things to happen, and I refused to give my subconscious more openings than it had already found already. There was no way I was going to bring any of this up in counseling. Ever. Maybe I'd write it out and set the paper on fire like I used to as a kid. Then again, that would _also_ be acknowledging I even dreamed this, so maybe not that, either.

Of course, this came with the unfortunate fact that it wasn't going to be alone; Sakura was _still_ clinging to my arm, and her expression was daring all the other girls to try and make something of it. And where Sakura went, so would Naruto.

"What was that about?" Naruto asked, as loud as he ever was. For someone who was good at setting pranks and evading nearly anyone looking for him, you'd think he'd have a better concept of an inside voice. At least in a dream.

"Maybe you'll find out when you're older," I muttered.

"Eh? What's what supposed to mean!?"

"It means you're such a _boy_ , Naruto. Right, Sasuke?" On the one hand, I was personally inclined to agree with her. On the other, I wasn't sure why she would expect _Sasuke_ to agree with her.

I decided to just not answer.

It wasn't long until Iruka returned, with the first of the jōnin-sensei to show up. The conversations taking place throughout the room died off entirely, leaving only silence. To my disappointment, I had no idea who any of them were, besides Asuma and Kurenai. Apparently my brain couldn't eke out any of the other more prominent jōnin in the series as stand-ins.

Iruka was actually finessing the whole process, by calling the students down by name instead of team, and introducing them to their jōnin-sensei, and even breaking the ice conversationally a bit before letting their new instructors take them away. Considering how much concern he showed over this class's graduates in the series, it made sense he wanted to be involved in the handover, though it did bring into question why he wouldn't have stuck around when Kakashi appeared to be a no-show. It made me wonder what the Academy's normal procedures would have been if it was real: this sort of turnover like Iruka was doing, or just leaving the students to the mercies of their new jōnin-sensei? Probably the second.

Eventually Team Seven were the only ones left in the room, along with Iruka. He was starting to look annoyed.

Naruto couldn't contain his impatience for that long. He actually clambered up onto the desk again, in spite of how well that had gone over for him earlier. "Hey, Iruka-sensei, what's taking this guy so long?" he shouted.

I decided it'd be a good idea to move.

"Naruto! How many times do I have to tell you to not stand on the desks!?" I barely had enough time to process Iruka suddenly holding a chalkboard eraser before it nailed Naruto straight in the face. He fell backwards in a puff of chalk dust, coughing, landing in the spot I had just evacuated.

Sakura stood up and glared at him, fanning the dust away from her as she tried to get out of its slowly expanding range. "I wanted to look nice for our new sensei, Naruto! And we don't even know if they _will_ be a guy! One of the other jōnin-sensei was a kunoichi!" She actually sounded enthused by the possibility. I guess guys— impressing Sasuke- _weren't_ actually the only thing on her mind. She still did her best to pat herself down to get as much of the chalk dust out of her hair and clothes, though.

I wasn't sure how I felt about the fact that this dream was going that far in filling out the sort of person an anime character could be, so I resolved it by walking away to sit at the front instead.

Iruka sighed. His burst of temper at Naruto had vanished as abruptly as it had arrived."You _are_ right though," he admitted. He stood up from his desk. "It's been almost two hours since your new sensei was supposed to show up. I'm going to go find out what's taking so long. Just wait here." With that, he left the classroom, but not without stopping and turning around at the door. "And don't you even _think_ about pulling anything, Naruto!"

Naruto groaned. I turned back to look. He hadn't moved from where he had landed yet. One foot was just barely sticking up in view. "Alright! Just find him so we can finally do cool ninja stuff!" He finally righted himself.

Sakura slid onto the bench next to me, and invaded my personal space once more. "What do you think our new sensei is going to be like?" she asked, trying to flutter her eyes at me. She did it for too long, and her direct eye contact afterwards went from attempted 'gazing' into just becoming an unsettling stare.

"I think… we're going to have to get used to them being late all the time," I said, twisting away so I could pretend she _wasn't_ still trying to directly stare into my eyes. Sasuke's eyes. Beyond the fact that I wasn't comfortable with a _middle school aged child_ trying to _flirt with me_ , the fact that twelve year olds didn't even know how to flirt well made this more unsettling than it had to be. Not that I wanted to meet a twelve year old who _could_ flirt well, but still.

"Ugh, I hope not!" Sakura said, sounding frustrated. "What sort of elite ninja is late all of the time?"

"He's probably lame and stuff," Naruto said, flopping on top of the desk in front of us. Sakura's hope that Team Seven's sensei would be a kunoichi didn't seem to matter in the fact Naruto had already decided it must be a man. Not that he was wrong.

I still wasn't going to tell him, though. I didn't want to deal with being bugged over knowing, which I could tell would already be inevitable if I did. So I ended up resting my head on clasped together hands, and resigned myself to waiting until Kakashi did show up. It made me wonder exactly how long we were going to be waiting; I know in the manga and show it was for hours, and it actually felt like I had been waiting the nearly two hours Iruka had mentioned, but what did that actually mean it was going to be? Two? Three? Four? With how realistic this dream was being, it wasn't something I wanted to actually imagine waiting out for that long.

Naruto pulled a crumpled and balled up piece of paper out of one of his pockets and started to throw it up above him, trying to catch it, increasingly letting it get closer. Every once in a while, he would fail to catch it at the last moment, and get smacked in the face by the paper.

Eventually, Sakura sighed heavily. "Do you really have to do that?" she asked, annoyed.

"Do what?" Naruto asked, letting it fall on his face, before he sat up.

"That! Play with trash," she said, making a face. "Why are you even carrying that around, anyways?"

"It isn't trash!" Naruto answered, indignantly.

That just made me even more curious. "What is it, then?"

"It's my rent notice," Naruto told me.

Sakura looked surprised. "You live on your own already? I thought there was an orphanage."

Naruto twisted away, looking self conscious for a split moment before recovering and pumping his fist. "Yeah! I have my own place, and I can keep my cupboard filled with instant ramen, and it means I don't have to put up with anyone in my own space! I'm a free man!"

Sakura didn't catch it. If anything, she only looked unimpressed by it. "Ugh. It's probably all gross and stuff." Well, she wasn't wrong there. In the show and manga at this point, Naruto did live in a disorganized and messy sty of a tiny apartment.

I wasn't going to bring up my own living arrangements, with Naruto's taking attention right now. Or Sasuke's living arrangements? Did it really matter that much when they were effectively the same?

Naruto looked unfazed. "But it's cool, Sakura!" I really hoped he was talking about living on his own, and not how much trash he must have that he didn't have to bother to clean up.

I only rolled my eyes a bit.

We settled into another boring lull of waiting, with various levels of patience. Eventually, Kakashi had to show up. It was only a matter of time, but I wasn't impressed by how long it felt. This was realistic in the worst way.

Naruto sat up again, and darted over to the door, where he opened it to peer out. "Where is this guy? Everyone else had their sensei show up hours ago and Iruka's gone!" That was different.

"Iruka left to go look," I pointed out. Not that he'd find Kakashi, since the jōnin was probably somewhere in the building if this was actually 'on schedule' according to the show. That would still be a sight to see though, just the idea of Iruka getting on Kakashi's case for being late was tantalizing, given how many horror stories I had heard from other grads who were working as TAs and had ended up working under perennially late professors who no longer had any fucks to give thanks to achieving tenure sometime in the eighties. Shame it would never happen, and wasn't actually real in any event.

"I really hope Iruka-sensei shows back up, or our new sensei does," Sakura said, wistfully. Even her tolerance for trying to behave and be an obedient student was starting to fray.

"Maybe I should prank him!" Naruto declared. "This guy deserves it after making us wait for so long!"

As entertaining as it could be to see Kakashi get an eraser to the head, I wasn't sure I wanted to see it as a dream. Also, with the luck I had so far, I wouldn't put it past the dream to have something else happen in retribution. "Why not wait to prank our new sensei?" I suggested.

"Eh?" Naruto and Sakura both looked at me like I had grown a second head. In retrospect, it wasn't actually something Sasuke would normally say, was it?

"There's no way you can come up with a prank that would actually catch a jōnin unaware, in a classroom, when they have already know what kind of reputation you have," I said, doing my best to convey with tone how stupid the idea actually was. "There's no way they're actually going to be that dumb. _You vandalized the hokage monument only a few days ago_."

"Oh! Yeah!" Naruto actually beamed. "Between that and the whole thing with accidentally stealing a forbidden scroll there's no way they don't know who I am!" He actually sounded proud of himself.

Sakura stared at Naruto like he was the crazy one now, attention shifted away from me. "You did what?!"

"Yeah! I learned a cool new jutsu and saved Iruka-sensei and then Iruka said I could be a ninja and he gave me his headband and everything! I graduated just like that!"

That was the worst summary of the introductory chapter and episode that I had ever heard. It was actually impressive, in a twisted way.

"If it was forbidden, it was probably forbidden for good reason!"

"But it's so cool! Watch!" He brought his hands together, ready to form a seal. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Before either Sakura or I could say anything, the room was filled to the point of being uncomfortably packed with dozens of Naruto clones. With that whole lead-up, I should have seen this coming.

"Huh. Interesting." Kakashi's voice came from the doorway; he was only able to lean in and look into the room due to the sea of Naruto clones taking up every bit of available space. Of course he would show up _now_. "I think… I'll see you on the roof." He backed away and firmly closed the door.

I wasn't sure if that was better or worse than his reaction in the show.

Sakura punched a Naruto, who burst into nothingness. "I can't believe you scared our sensei away!" She pouted at the realization she hadn't even hit the original.

"What?! That guy?" A few Narutos shouted together. At least those ones were mostly on the same page. The rest were beginning to chatter aimlessly, making the room an orange-themed din.

"Who else is it going to be?" Sakura pointed out, pushing a jostled clone away. "He _did_ just say to meet him on the roof!"

"Can you just dispel all of your clones already?" I said, not entirely sure where to direct this point. Two of them were making faces at me, perched on top of the desk. I didn't appreciate this.

"Fine! I was just trying to prove it was nothing bad, you know!" a Naruto shouted, before getting accidentally shoved by another Naruto. After a moment of squawking, all but one disappeared. I guess this dream refused to be anything but zero sum at a minimum where Naruto was concerned.

"I'm not sure being crammed into a room with dozens of you _isn't_ bad," Sakura muttered, before trying to perk back up. "We should go meet him!"

Naruto pulled a face. "Eh? He's the one who made us wait forever and you want to rush right up there?"

"Do _you_ want to wait any longer in this room?" I pointed out. I didn't want to, that was for sure. Especially not if this dream was going to continue to poke ass and go as slow as it was.

His eyes widened. "No!" And with that, he scrambled, running out the door.

I realized my error soon enough. I turned to see Sakura was staring at me, hands clasped together.

"We can walk up together, since Naruto left. That was so smart of you," she said. I could practically feel the intensity of her crush rolling off her in waves, and it took everything in my power to not physically cringe.

"...We should hurry up," I answered, and instead walked over to the door, opening it. I didn't close it fast enough to avoid seeing Sakura look visibly crushed, hanging her head at the failed attempt as she trailed after me. It made me feel like I kicked a puppy.

Again, this made me realize I didn't actually really know _how_ to get around here. Just like earlier, I tried to not think too hard about where I was actually going, letting the dream steer me instead. Thankfully, it didn't get me— or Sakura, since she was following me with a hangdog look— lost, and we made it to the roof with no trouble.

After everything else, that felt like a minor miracle as far as this dream was concerned.

Looking at the roof from this vantage point was actually interesting, compared to how it was shown from only specific shots. The fact that it required someone to think planting trees on a roof was a viable design choice was something I had always wondered about— sure, it looked cool for something drawn, but could you use trees this big in real life on a roof, too?— and the large arches that were probably supposed to be for some kind of partial shade canopy were sort of fascinating, but from standing there, it looked different, and made it possible to almost forget you were a few stories up. I guess that was the point of the trees.

Naruto was already hassling Kakashi when we found them.

"C'moooooooon, who are you!?" he demanded, from his seat on the wide stone steps. Kakashi was lazily perched on the railing ahead of him, arms folded over his chest.

Kakashi's visible eye closed, crinkling in a smile. "You didn't want to wait for your teammates?" he asked.

"Well, they're here now!" Naruto insisted. Sakura sat down first, and looked disappointed when I sat down on the other side of Naruto.

Kakashi shrugged, unfolding his arms as he did to hold his hands palm up. "Why don't you begin with introductions?"

Sakura looked at him with wide eyes. "You want us to introduce ourselves? How do you mean?" She was taking it a bit too seriously.

"Oh, you know," Kakashi answered. "Things you like, don't like. Dreams for the future. Hobbies?" He cocked his head slightly for the briefest moment as though he was wondering if there was anything else to add. "That sort of thing."

"What? Hey! You should introduce yourself first! We don't even know who you are!" Naruto insisted. "I already asked!"

"Fine, then," Kakashi answered. "My name is Hatake Kakashi. And I don't feel like telling you what I like or dislike. I have hobbies."

"You skipped bringing up your future," I said, deadpan. I was pretty certain that he had at least brought up something about that in the show. "Or is that something you don't care about?"

"Hmm. You could say that." Well, damn. I wasn't expecting that sort of baldfaced admittance of nihilism. I was almost impressed. That practically made Kakashi an honorary millennial. Looking at the other two though, it seemed that Naruto and Sakura were more slightly horrified at the concept of not caring about having a future at this point in their young lives. "Why don't you go first, then."

"All you told us was your name!" Naruto interrupted.

"And mental state," Sakura muttered, under her breath. It was her turn to get stared at blankly. While I didn't _disagree_ , Kakashi and Naruto apparently had no idea how to process that sort of commentary coming from the pink-haired girl.

The silence was starting to become awkward, and I felt obligated like I was increasingly obligated to say something. "You should already know my name, and if you don't have to say anything about yourself, I don't need to either." As I felt all the attention shift onto me, I realized that was probably pushing the bounds of what I should have said. It was too late to take back.

"...Right." I wondered how much this version of Kakashi regretted everything. "You then," he said, to Naruto, trying to regain control of the situation.

"I'm Uzuma—" Naruto cut himself off. "Wait. Is this some kind of trick? Is that why he didn't answer anything?" He looked at Kakashi suspiciously. "Are we being tested again!?"

Had I broken the introductions?

Kakashi laughed to himself for a moment. "Let's just… skip the introductions then," he said, straightening up. "You're right. There _is_ another test."

"I knew it!"

I had broken the introductions.

"But this wasn't it." All the humor had dropped from his voice. "Of the twenty-seven graduates from your class, only nine will become genin. The other eighteen will be sent back to the academy. That means there's a sixty-six percent chance you'll fail."

Naruto's jaw dropped in shock. "Eh? But we worked hard to get here, didn't we!? What was the point of everything else if we have to do another test?!"

"Well, we needed genin candidates, didn't we?"

"What!?"

Kakashi shrugged aimlessly. "It's how it works. I decide if you pass or fail. Meet me at the designated training tomorrow morning at five AM with all of your ninja tools."

I started to hear ringing. Where was that coming from?

"Oh, and don't even think about eating breakfast in the morning. Unless you want to puke it all right back up." Kakashi pulled out a few sheafs of paper from his flak jacket as he walked towards us. "The details are all here. Don't be late tomorrow." I could barely hear what he was saying.

It was getting louder and louder.

"-that tough?!"

I couldn't hear anything else.

* * *

I woke up to the alarm on my phone beeping obnoxiously, which made me freeze for a moment as dread slowly filled me. That wasn't a good alarm. I slowly sat up, turned, and picked my phone up from the nightstand where it had been charging.

I had hit the point where my absolute last resort alarm was sounding off. If I didn't get moving _now_ I wasn't just going to be late, I was going to be _hideously_ late, on an exam day no less. I only had enough time to hurriedly get dressed, grab the papers I needed, my cane, and rush to my truck, shooting off a text to the professor I TA'd for to let them know I'd be late.

There wasn't enough time to eat breakfast, much less think of anything else.


	3. Hear the Bells, Pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bell test goes awry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the ever lovely Tavina for beta-reading! And thank you to everyone who's been reading and commenting.

I blinked at the unexpected early pre-dawn light, muted and gray, the beginning undertones of pink not yet reaching into the sky. Before me, Sakura was yawning and Naruto was mid-stretch, both with full bags on them. It was the training ground for the bell test. "Not this again…" 

The last dream had only been yesterday night; I wasn't sure whether that was better or worse than having a longer gap, but what I did know is I wasn't a fan of the fact that this was apparently becoming a recurring thing. I wondered vaguely if it meant I should give in to my grandmother and tell her I actually needed her prayers for once, for these strange dreams (asking her to stop at all was out of the question, but it would at least redirect her away from my lack of a love life. The last time I had gone over there my aunt went out of the way to inform me the candles at the altar were for me).

"Right?!" Naruto said, far too loudly. "I can't believe he's late!" He shrugged his bag's straps off his shoulders, allowing it to fall onto the ground with a muffled clatter, and scuffed at the ground with the side of his sandal, before dropping onto his bag to sit on it. "How is he supposed to teach us if he can't even show up at the time he told us?!" 

Sakura slowly slumped onto the ground. "I can't believe I woke up at three just to get ready and he's not even here…" 

"You woke up at three?" I couldn't help but ask. 

"I had to take a shower and do my hair," she said, sounding mulish even as she defended herself. 

I actually exchanged a look with Naruto, though he looked more baffled than horrified. I just couldn't believe she decided to get up that early for that much effort for _this_. My own sleep hygiene might not be the best, but that was just excessive. 

"Waking up that early just to do your hair is just going to put you at a disadvantage if you're exhausted," I said, trying to approach this delicately. "Did you at least go to sleep early enough to make up for it?"

Sakura blushed, and turned to look away. Right. I would have to take that as a no, then. "I double checked that I packed my bag with all of my ninja tools and made sure they were in good condition," she said, still pink in the face. 

"And I practiced last night!" Naruto pumped a fist. "I refuse to go back to the academy, you know!"

I stared at him. I had no idea what Sasuke would have done the night before, but as far as I was concerned, the most important thing to do before any kind of test was to actually get sleep. Cramming was for the desperate and if you had to cram, you were probably screwed anyways. Then again, that seemed to be Naruto's general approach if the canon was anything to go by. And how the dream version behaved. This had to be some subconscious nonsense, though I couldn't possibly guess what it would mean in this context, disguised as anime and manga characters. 

Right. I looked down at the packed bag hanging at my own side, and wondered what was going to be inside it. I couldn't remember right now what they made serious use of in the original version of the bell test, just that Kakashi's serious issue with Team Seven was based in the lack of teamwork. Kunai? Maybe some shuriken? At the same time though, I could swear that was just what they already had on them, instead of taking anything from their bags, probably because Kakashi was so severely above their skill level it meant the attempted fights were basically nothing. There were a few traps, but I might have gotten that mixed up with Kakashi's actions, since I was pretty sure he had showcased everything but summoning and sealing. 

I ended up lowering into a sitting position, slipping the shoulder strap off and pulling it into my lap to actually take a look inside the bag's main compartment. It was surprisingly filled and well organized, with multiple arrays of shuriken and a few braces of kunai being the most obvious things inside, but there were also a couple coils of what I assumed was ninja wire, along with a few that were plain rope. I looked over at Sakura and Naruto. "What did you two bring?"

Naruto stood up, opened his bag, and then lifted it, only to flip it over, dumping its contents onto the ground. Dull or mismatched kunai that looked like they had been scavenged or bought at different times and uncared for shuriken with chipped edges and streaks of rust made up the majority of the weaponry he had brought with him, but the rest of the pile was more eclectic. Apparently he was used to using it for more than just ninja gear. The plastic bottles of paint were one thing, same with the thicker ropes that he probably would have used for successfully graffiting the hokage monument, and a few already previously used and rinsed out wide sash paint brushes… but I had no idea why there was a package of tofu in there, ominous green blobs floating under the thin plastic. I didn't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. 

"Did… you bring rotten tofu?" Sakura asked, her color looking wan. The sight must have killed her appetite as well. " _Why_?"

"Not on purpose!" Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "I must have forgot to take everything out of my bag! I think the tofu is from the last time I got groceries?"

I looked at the package of tofu with an unsure expression. There was no way that thing could have been in there for only a short bit of time. "How long ago was that?"

"Uh... Two weeks ago?" Naruto didn't sound particularly sure of himself.

The earlier wanness in Sakura's face started to take on a green tinge. I really hoped she didn't throw up. "That's been buried in your bag for two weeks!?"

Naruto crossed his arms, looking away from her, an embarrassed look on his face. "It's not like I did it on purpose, ya know!" 

"How many times could it have gotten punctured or opened in the last two weeks!? You've been walking around with a— a spoiled food bomb while we've been getting ready to graduate!" That was starting to get into some serious hypotheticals. 

"Not on purpose!"

I didn't want to think about how much growth was inside for it to be bulging the way it was. Or how it looked so ominously green even under the plastic top. The focus on the tofu was beginning to get to me, and I could feel my stomach begin to churn.

I tried to shift attention away from the deathly looking tofu. "Sakura, what did you bring?"

Her eyes widened, and she looked back at me, blushing again. I really wished she would knock that off, but I had the suspicion that as long as I was having these dreams it wasn't going to stop. "Oh! Let me show you, Sasuke," she said, her voice going higher as she tried to sound flirtatious. At least, I assumed that was what she was trying to aim for. That was actually worse than the blushing.

Unlike Naruto, Sakura carefully pulled everything out, laying everything down in orderly rows. She had brought mostly kunai, and not very many shuriken, but other than it being a thing of ratios, what she had packed was pretty much the same as what was in mine, except for the ninja wire. If this wasn't a dream, I would have guessed it would have been because the academy would suggest a standard list of gear to have and carry. Sakura was the type who probably followed the list exactly, regardless of actual needs. As far as Sasuke's gear went, all of the extra shuriken made sense, even though I could only make the assumption that it was because it was a specialty. At least as far as baby would-be ninja could have specialties. Naruto, on the other hand, was just Naruto.

"Since he isn't here yet... we could set the field up for our advantage," I said, thinking. It at least made more sense than what I suspected was going to happen as far as my perception of time went with this dream. I wasn't exactly looking forward to dreaming about being bored and feeling like it took hours. 

"Eh? What do you mean?" Naruto squinted at me suspiciously.

"Oh!" Sakura looked eager. "It's a test, right? And he had us bring our ninja gear… Do you think he's going to have us fight him or something?" 

"I think so," I lied, vaguely. The bell test was more Kakashi messing with them and gauging teamwork than a straight up fight, but I wasn't going to tell them that. I didn't want to deal with their questions any more than I did the last time I dreamed about them. 

Naruto bounced on his feet. "Leave him to me!"

Sakura's eyebrows crinkled together as she looked at him. "You really think you can beat a jounin on your own? We just graduated! And you didn't even pass the exam!"

"No, but I beat Mizuki-sensei! I can do this!" He balled one of his fists in determination. 

"What!?" Poor Sakura. Without context, none of this had to make sense. Especially not when it was combined with Naruto's somewhat disjointed way of telling stories.

"Yeah! That's how I saved Iruka-sensei! So I got his headband!" Even I was beginning to have a hard time tracking this.

"Whose headband? I thought you said you got Iruka-sensei's!"

"I did!" 

I decided I should try to redirect the conversation before Naruto got any more confusing. "If we're supposed to fight him, we won't stand a chance if he takes it seriously, much less on our own."

"You think we should work together?" Sakura was staring at me a bit too hard, her hands clasped together. I don't think she was imaging the same sort of thing I was thinking. I moved backwards. 

"Do we have any other choice?" I asked. As I asked, it occurred to me I had no idea how the dream logic was going to work, when it came to actually trying to fight. The haphazard various classes I took when I was younger sure as hell didn't apply to ninja stuff, but the last few times I had stopped trying to focus too much on anything in these dreams it was like I had gone on automatic. Would it work out like that again? 

My question wasn't enough to discourage whatever Sakura was thinking, but it seemed to have triggered something in Naruto. "I'll be better than you at working together!"

I stared at him for a moment before I decided to just give up and accede to whatever he thought he was saying. "That.... doesn't really make sense as an answer, but alright then. Fine. Sure you will." I looked at the horizon, which was already hinting at the promise of a clear blue sky. "If he takes as long as he did yesterday, it's going to be a few hours until he even shows up." 

Naruto's eyes widened. "Wait. We could have eaten anyways?!" He kicked at one of the wooden posts. I wondered if those were there only for Kakashi's test, or if they were a usual thing for the field. 

I shrugged. It wasn't like I actually knew Kakashi's logic, even between the show and manga.

Sakura hung her head, when her stomach grumbled at the idea of eating. "I should have eaten dinner..."

I had honestly forgotten about that part, with her unhealthy diet scheme. 

Naruto looked at her in shock. "What!? Why wouldn't you eat dinner?"

"Because I'm trying to maintain my figure!"

"What figure?" Naruto sounded genuinely baffled.

Sakura's eyes narrowed in Naruto's direction. "Shannaro!"

I dragged a hand down my face as Naruto got decked. "You can't just not eat... Besides, that's for-" What would make sense most here? Right. "-civilians who don't do anything and eat too much. If you don't eat enough of the right food while training or on missions, after a while your body's just going to start eating itself and waste away. That's not the kind of skinny you want to be."

"What, like a cannibal?" Naruto sounded horrified, staring between me and then Sakura. He had bounced right back from getting punched. "Sakura's going to cannibalize herself?" He stepped away from her, now. Funny how that made him more fearful than her fists. 

"What!?" Sakura looked disgusted. "No! Ugh! That's so gross, Naruto! Eugh!"

Naruto levered a pointed finger at her. "You're the one who's gonna become a cannibal!"

I regretted ever speaking. I could always try to deflect, but I had a feeling that it would only get worse. "That goes for you, too."

"Eh?" The blond looked at me in confusion, now. 

"Do you even know what a vegetable is?"

"Yeah! I do eat them, sometimes!" he said, huffily. "They're in my ramen!"

"You can't just live off of ramen, either," I pointed out.

Naruto gave me a suspicious look. "You're sounding like Iruka-sensei. Did he put you up to this?"

"When would he have done that?" Sakura was confused. She wasn't the only one. 

I stared at him with dismay. "It doesn't change what I said, unless you feel like staying short forever."

Naruto looked scandalized at the suggestion. "There's no way I'm gonna be some kinda midget Hokage!"

"Then start diversifying your diet," I said, stressing the word, and then looking at Sakura, "and make sure you're actually eating what you need to be." I didn't sign up to play at giving advice in my dreams, but apparently that's how it was going to be. It also made me wonder if in-universe Sakura's parents would even know she was skipping meals or anything. Then again, it wasn't like tweens and young teenagers _weren't_ crafty. 

"I think I liked it better when you were just a jerk who kept to himself..." Naruto muttered.

Sakura looked away. I wasn't sure what to make of that.

I only shrugged.

Naruto's attention landed on everything we had laid out again. "Hey! Hey! What if we made a bunch of traps and stuff? That should work! Especially if he takes forever to get here! It's practically a prank!" 

I suddenly felt an unexpected surge of sympathy for not just Kakashi, but Iruka as well, before I realized that Kakashi was the instrument by which I was being made to suffer from boredom in what could have been a far more interesting dream. Iruka had at least been inspiring. Kakashi, on the other hand, was Kakashi. Most of my sympathy for him evaporated. "Why not?"

Sakura looked at Naruto with one eyebrow raised, uncertainty playing on her face. "What if we get in trouble?"

"If he didn't want us to rig the field in our favor for whatever he's going to have us do, he would have shown up on time," was my reasoning. If he didn't want us to do certain things, he would have explicitly said as much. It probably didn't count as cheating, if it was all during the preparatory period he had accidentally left us. I was choosing to view this as being more like an open book exam, if it was like anything. 

"And if we don't have to fight him?" she pointed out. On top of whatever nerves she must have had over the possibility of being sent back to the academy, I really must have ruined her mood, if she wasn't immediately agreeing with her 'precious Sasuke' in an attempt to score favor.

"Then we either take everything down after he leaves or we leave it all up as a surprise for whoever trains here next." Not that that was particularly ethical, but besides the fact I doubted it would be that lethal, it wasn't like it would matter in a dream.

Sakura made a face. "We're supposed to take everything down once we're finished using any training locations," she said, sounding like she was reciting something from memory.

"Yeah!" Naruto exclaimed, again, ignoring Sakura's comment entirely. "We'll put up a bunch of traps everywhere, and then we'll beat him, and then he's going to have to accept us as his students!" He was way too excited for this time of morning, to the point where I was beginning to wonder if Naruto was actually a _morning person_. Could dream people even be morning people or night owls? 

I had no idea where would be the best place or even where to start with trapping things to put Kakashi at a disadvantage, and everything about Sakura probably meant she wouldn't either. "You're the local menace," I said, looking at Naruto. "How should we do this?"

His eyes widened, and he inhaled as he looked at our surroundings with an expression that I couldn't quite pin at first, before I realized it was intense focus. It wasn't exactly the sort of expression you saw on most middle school aged kids, much less the kind that were full of energy and easily distracted. He took in the field we were in, the wooded area surrounding the field, and the river that was serving as a boundary. Finally, he exhaled. "Well, it's three against one so that means we're the ones who are gonna have to pay real close attention!"

Sakura stared at him as she tried to figure out what kind of logic Naruto was even using, and eventually gave up. I hadn't even bothered to try to figure it out. "Don't you mean... him? We're the ones who have the number advantage."

"No, no! Because see, if you're doing a prank, it gets more complicated with more people, see? See?" Naruto was really getting excited. "It's harder to keep track like that! That's why whenever the old man sends people out after me when I get in trouble on my own it's so easy to get rid of them! They get all mixed up and I can send them down the wrong direction and they all go running!" He started to laugh. "Even though they're all chuunin and even some jounin!" That explained some of his earlier unwarranted confidence, then, if he was equating his ability to evade much more experienced ninja in the village with meaning he could also fight them. "They have to keep track of everyone else, try to find me, not get mixed up with whatever anyone else is trying to do to catch me, and get all tangled up! All I have to do is not get caught!" That sounded a bit too simplistic, but I was starting to see where he was coming from. "I mean, it's harder if Kiba and Shikamaru are with me, but it's doable! We usually only get caught if Shikamaru gets bored of hiding and gives up." 

"Because they aren't coordinating even though they're on the same task," I said, realizing. "They're just working in parallel." And in the story Konoha was known for teamwork… how, again? 

"Yeah!" Naruto looked cheered on that someone had actually understood what he was trying to get at. "If we _really_ want to get him good, we can't do that! It'd go faster if we split up, but then we wouldn't know who put what traps where, right? Which means any of us could set them off by accident instead of him!" On the one hand, it made sense that Naruto would know what strategy could be, considering all the trouble he was supposed to have gotten into before graduating. On the other hand, apparently _he_ didn't know he even knew what strategy was if it wasn't in the context of making a nuisance of himself. 

No wonder Iruka would spend so much time on him, if this was the sort of stuff he would come up with instead of focusing in class. He was trying to keep the village from going into full riot over one pint-sized delinquent prankster. 

"I don't know about this..." Sakura said, hesitating. "What if it makes him unhappy with us?"

"He's the one who had us show up at five in the morning and isn't even here yet," I told her. "He has no room to talk."

"Yeah! If he didn't want us to use this extra time, he would have shown up!" That was a bit of a stretch on Naruto's part, but he wasn't really wrong, in that sense. All of this was on him, when it came down to it. 

"Then, what _should_ we do?" Sakura asked. She sounded reluctant to address Naruto, but I had basically put him in charge of this by prompting him in the first place.

Naruto looked at all of the gear and then the landscape again. "We don't wanna do this out in the open," he decided. "The trees will be better! He's a lot bigger than us, and traps don't work that great without some way to blend them in anyhow. We can at least hide and distract him a lot better in there, instead." He gave a considering look at the ninja wire. "I dunno about using the ninja wire for this though, it might be too risky."

"How do you mean?" Sakura asked. 

"Well, if you're not using it as a weapon on purpose, you've gotta be careful with it, right? It's really easy to cut yourself on it even by accident if you use too much force. And if you don't know where you've used it? You're gonna get caught in it! And like I said, we're the ones at a disadvantage so we don't wanna use something we could get tangled up in so easy," Naruto explained.

I wasn't sure how I felt about Naruto being able to actually use logic. "Won't using ropes stand out too much?" While what Sakura and I had wasn't that thick, I didn't believe for a moment that Kakashi wouldn't manage to spot them. 

"Hehe, not if you do it right!" Naruto rubbed his hands together. That was ominous.

In the end, we packed everything back up and went into the woods, letting Naruto take the lead and dictate what kind of traps to use and where. The further from the grass we got, the more it slowly became apparent why Naruto's kunai and shuriken looked like they did; he had no qualms about using them. 

Naruto wasn't afraid of abusing his weaponry. He was using his kunai to score marks into the trees or pin thinned and untwined pieces of rope into the trunks and branches of trees, and was driving them deep into the ground. Occasionally he would look around, before running off to stare at something from a different vantage point, and toss a kunai or shuriken from there to check something, or plant them in spots that were blatantly obvious compared to where he actually strung something or set things up to launch if triggered. 

At one point he hauled himself into a questionable looking tree with yellowed leaves, only to balance precariously on a narrow branch that was barely able to hold his weight with one hand gripping an even more spindly one above him. He stood there and jumped until we heard a cracking sound as the branch threatened to break below him, before he leapt out of it and made the other tree branches look unappealing or blatantly look like traps. He had Sakura and I plant obvious tripwires on the ground below, making estimates on what would urge Kakashi into the trees at the right distance.

It was a bit terrifying to watch him go at it. He didn't even seem to be aware of how much thought he was putting into everything, just naturally making adjustments naturally based on whatever obstacle he had added before or would result in a forced course correction. 

Eventually, Naruto looked satisfied with the level of preparation he had put into it. He had lightened his bag in the process, and made similar dents in the others. 

"Won't he notice our bags look empty?" Sakura wondered, looking at hers and mine, before looking at Naruto's. His was practically empty, in comparison.

"Well, we can either stuff them with something, or just ignore it and see if he ignores it too," I answered. I wasn't entirely sure that Kakashi would ignore it if it looked suspicious enough, but he was apathetic half the time in the series, so in theory it could work out. Then again, he was making these dreams a pain in my ass, so maybe not.

"Oh yeah! That's easy!" Naruto climbed into one of the trees again, and before we could ask what he was doing, began to shake leaves, twigs, and other random debris left by birds and other creatures out. "Just put some stuff in there, and some rocks! He probably won't look inside unless you make him think something funny's up." 

"Why do I get the feeling you've done this before?" I asked, dryly.  
  
He laughed and rubbed the back of his head, still dropping things out of the tree. "I miiight have forgotten to pack everything a couple times when we had shuriken practice and borrowed from Kiba after the first time I got yelled at? The teachers don't care if they don't notice!" 

Sakura looked about as impressed as expected. "Ugh, I wish I was surprised. No wonder your kunai and shuriken look so awful!" 

I couldn't believe what I was going to say. "No, it's because he's actually been using them outside of practice," I told her. "Did you see what he was doing the whole time?" His aim wasn't always the greatest when he had been doing this, but if watching him lay traps in the woods was any indication, my guess was that this dream's Naruto was actually used to using them like actual tools, and not just as school supplies. In the name of being a goddamn delinquent, apparently, but still. 

Naruto suddenly stopped, mid motion. I didn't like the expression on Naruto's face, up in the tree. It wasn't like Sakura or Ino's expressions when they were looking my way, but it was making me realize I had made a serious miscalculation by defending him. It was too close to praise for Naruto. 

"See? Even Sasuke can tell!" Naruto said. Forget dreams, I felt like I was going to have _nightmares_ about this. I never wanted this.

Sakura flushed pink, pouting. "Well, still."

I sighed, and grabbed a few of the longer branches Naruto had dropped to twine them with loose bits of rope into a questionable basket frame, sitting down. It didn't have to be that large, since the bag I— _Sasuke,_ not _me_ — had wasn't that large, compared to Naruto or Sakura's bulkier things. I couldn't believe that this, the one thing I had ever learned and bothered to remember from attending a day camp, was getting used for a dream of all things. Even my mother hadn't appreciated the skill I had picked up. Then again, it wasn't like we had the room for baskets upon baskets upon baskets, and she was probably expecting something she could put on the fridge or put away with the rest of the things she insisted on keeping as 'memories'. The vast majority of my questionable baskets from that summer had ended up distributed to various aunts and uncles, and even a few cousins. 

Naruto looked down. "What are you doing?" he shouted.

"I don't feel like stuffing my bag with all of that, so I'm going to make a basket frame so it just looks full," I explained.

Sakura looked intrigued. It had to be more appealing than bulking her bag up with random debris. "Can you show me how?"

"Hey! Me too! Me too!"

I glanced around to see if he had dropped any more suitable branches before I answered. It looked like there wasn't quite enough. "I guess. Grab some more thin branches that are about the length of your arm," I told him, looking upwards. 

Naruto immediately snapped a few off and dropped to the ground. Even from the ground the damage was apparent. We had really denuded that poor tree. "Hey, hey, Sasuke! Show us now!"

I had not expected this to devolve into ninja arts and crafts, but here I was.

"Fine." I motioned for them both to come closer, and demonstrated.

It wasn't going to look pretty at all— I was half-assing it pretty strongly and if I was trying to make a real basket it probably would have fallen apart after too long— but for what I was trying to do, it just needed to stay in place, inside the bag. "You need to have at least two crossing each other like this, and then bind them at the center," I explained. 

They had significantly less trouble picking it up with my rusty instructions than I initially had under the instruction of an eighteen year old getting paid minimum wage. Then again, they were also significantly less clumsy. Finger dexterity went a long way with something this fiddly. In between some vague corrections, we started to brainstorm on how to lead Kakashi into the trees if we did have to fight him. 

It wasn't long before we had managed to carefully shove the questionably made skeletal frames into our bags, all of them held together with the barest amount of branches and rope tied together. My eight year old self would have been horrified at such haphazard work. It was still probably far more effort than needed to throw Kakashi off, but it was better than sitting around dreaming about being bored.

I still couldn't believe he hadn't shown up yet, but it was still relatively early in the morning, if not quite painfully so. After a short shakedown to reduce as much evidence of our plotting as possible— mostly on Naruto's part, considering he had what seemed like half a tree sticking out of his hair and the collar of his jacket— we ended up returning to the open part of the training ground. 

We ended up sitting— or lying, in Naruto's case— on the grass again, looking out in different directions trying to see if Kakashi was ever going to show up. The sun had managed to trek further into proper daytime before the complaints started to kick in. 

"I should have eaten dinner, I should have gone to bed early, I should have not woken up so early…" Sakura said, out loud. 

"I coulda eaten breakfast," Naruto groaned. "I could eat _so_ many bowls of Ichiraku's right now..."

I wasn't going to tell them I felt fine. They probably wouldn't appreciate it. "I can't believe we're _still_ waiting." I paused, as a thought crossed my mind. I wasn't sure why it had bothered to show up. "Do you think we could petition for a different jounin?" 

"Oh, you want to get rid of me already? We haven't even started the test yet." _When the hell did he get here?_

Naruto jumped to his feet with impressive speed, for starting from lying down. "What! You're the one who made us wait forever, again!" 

Kakashi idly glanced at the alarm clock in his hand, only looking at the bells. "It's only what, a quarter past nine?" He also had a backpack on. I wondered what he had in there. If this was real, it would be his dirty romances.

"You told us to be here at five!" Sakura joined in, now. 

"Did I?" Kakashi asked, casually. He was taking too much joy in this. 

"Yes!" Naruto was fired up. 

"Oh well." Kakashi shrugged effusively. "Let's get started." He set the clock down on top of the middle wooden post. 

"The time on that says 10:08," I noted. 

"I looked at the clock when I left," he answered. 

Sakura's eyelid began to twitch. 

Kakashi pressed down on the top of the alarm, activating it. "It's set for noon," he told us, as he lazily pulled the stringed pair of bells from one of his pockets. "This shouldn't be too hard for you," he said. The man was a goddamn tease. "All you have to do is take these bells from me before noon." He jingled them together, letting them chime. "Those who can't do it won't get lunch. If you can't, you'll be tied to those posts, and I'll eat my lunch right in front of you."

Naruto gripped his head with his hands and Sakura held onto her stomach. I was starting to wonder if I wasn't feeling hungry because it was a dream, or if Sasuke had cheated. Either way, watching this play out and not on a screen or on paper really amplified how much of a jerk move it was on Kakashi's part. 

"You only have to get one bell. Since there's two, at minimum one of you will get tied up." Kakashi met all of our eyes in turn. "And whoever doesn't take a bell fails the mission. So someone's getting sent back to the academy regardless." As far as inspiring fear of failure went, he was succeeding in it where Sakura and Naruto were concerned, all while smiling. I wanted to be able to do that someday. For now, I'd have to just settle for vaguely worrying freshmen who only realized there were consequences to their illegal underaged drinking and sudden uncontrolled freedom with only a few heavily weighted papers and the final exam left and none of the reading done. "Or it could be two of you, or even your whole team. You can use all of your weapons, including shuriken. If you're not prepared to come at me with killing intent, you won't be able to take the bells."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Sakura asked, nervously. I guess she hadn't really mentally accepted the possibility of us fighting him, even with all of the traps we had laid. 

"Yeah, you're so lazy you couldn't even get here in time!" Naruto said, trying to laugh it off.

"I've noticed that those who tend to complain aren't skilled enough." Wait. While that was intended to be a diss towards Naruto, didn't that comment apply to Obito, too? That was something he had originally said, wasn't it? Kakashi really did have problems. "Just ignore Dead Last here, and—" 

Naruto pulled a kunai from his leg holster and readied to throw it at him, halfway into a lunge to give it proper thrust. Even with knowing what came next, I was still unprepared for how fast Kakashi cleared the distance between us, and soon had Naruto by the head in one hand, the other gripping the blond's wrist, angling the kunai at the back of Naruto's neck.

"Don't be in such a rush. I hadn't said start yet," Kakashi said, just slightly more quietly and slowly than he had spoken in before. 

Naruto grimaced, trying to pull away, but didn't succeed until Kakashi finally let him go. The vague focus Kakashi had put on display vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared. 

"You did at least come at me with the intent to kill," he commented, lazily. "So, I think I'm actually starting to like you guys." What a small mercy. "Get ready…. And start!" It wasn't until I was mid-leap that I realized I had no idea what the hell I was doing. 

As much as I was confused by that autonomous response, I still headed straight for the trees. We had agreed upon a spot, but now I realized I wasn't sure if the other two were going to stick to the plan anymore. Sakura might— if she wasn't too rattled by Kakashi's insistence at us making a serious attempt at killing him— but Naruto was rightfully upset at Kakashi revealing that in front of everyone and making fun of him for it. That alone made him more unpredictable than he might have otherwise been. Then again, I was trying to apply serious analysis to fictional characters in a dream, so I was the real fool here. 

I hauled myself into the tree we had decided on as a meeting point. To my surprise, Sakura was already in it, only a glint of pink spoiling her hiding spot in the leafiest part of the crown of the tree. I settled onto a branch below her, leaning against the trunk where it was slightly more shaded. 

"Sasuke!" she whisper-hissed to me. "Did you see Naruto?" 

I shook my head. 

"Ugh. I hope he didn't go off to do his own thing…" she said, exasperated. "I can't believe he actually tried to attack our sensei like that!"

"He's trying to provoke us," I said, thinking. 

"Naruto's _always_ trying to be annoying," she said, trying to agree with me.

"Not him; Kakashi," I explained. "He's doing this on purpose. Telling us no food and making us get up early enough that we'd be hungry and somewhat tired by the time he even starts his test? On top of being late? Naruto just had the biggest button for him to push." 

"You really think it's on purpose?" she asked, dubiously. She still wanted to place her full faith in adults and the educational system. Even I didn't place any faith in the educational system. 

"Right now? Absolutely."

After minutes of tense waiting, I spied orange through the leaves, which coalesced into Naruto's shape coming in from the right. At least, I hoped it was him. I realized with a start that it could have been a henge. Naruto already knew where we were supposed to meet, and I didn't think he would be trying to come from the side with how much Kakashi had riled him up. He wasn't that subtle. This was seeking behavior, and neither of us were particularly well hidden.

I hadn't accounted for that possibility earlier.

"Hey!" The possibly-Naruto shouted, from the ground, before he joined us in the tree. 

"Naru—" I motioned for Sakura to stop talking, and she cut herself off almost immediately. 

"What?" The blond looked confused. 

I looked at him suspiciously. "What did you do yesterday that Kakashi wouldn't know about?" 

"Huh? What do you mean?" 

"Oh!" went Sakura. She had caught on. 

"What did you do yesterday when we went to lunch?" I asked again.

A nervous laugh was the answer. "I had ramen! Why are you asking?" 

"Nice try, but wrong." 

Sakura's gasp was cut off by the pop of smoke as Kakashi ended the henge. "So much for research," he said, idly. The bells were in one of his hands, which he jangled at us. 

Sakura bolted from the tree first, heading into the direction of the first layer of traps. I lunged at Kakashi's center of gravity, and even though I mentally prepared for him to dodge—

—he was out of sight before I even had a chance to finish the thought. The bells tinkled teasingly above me. "Ah, you weren't putting all of your effort into that. You're going to need to try harder than that," he said. "First in class means nothing out in the real world. Not with your brother out there."

I didn't really know how to respond to that one. At bare minimum it was actually a ridiculously awful thing to say to anyone, much less an assumed child. 

"HEY!" Naruto's indignant shout saved me the effort of having to come up with anything beyond being vaguely dismayed at Kakashi's lack of social skills. "I'm not done with you, you bastard!" He was running through the treetops, a kunai in hand. 

"You're kind of late," I yelled in his direction. Wait. I should probably arm myself too, shouldn't I? While I reached into my— Sasuke's?— leg holster, Kakashi dropped onto the same branch I was into a crouch, swinging his leg out in a wide and low kick that was intended to knock me out of the tree. Without entirely being aware of the decision, I leapt barely in time to avoid it. 

"He kicked me into the river!" Naruto threw his kunai at Kakashi. There was a clink of metal against metal, and I realized at the same time that not only had Kakashi thrown something to deflect it, it was now angled in my direction. 

I wasn't quite at the point where I preferred the bizarre repeat dreams about showing up to work late and discovering the whole campus had vanished and that I needed to cross country to find my advisor somewhere in the middle of Vermont on Pancho Villa's behalf, but we were getting there. 

I dropped out of the tree. I didn't trust that going for Kakashi wouldn't just result in him kicking me back in the direction of the kunai's path. It seemed like the sort of behavior he would indulge in. 

Kakashi looked down at me from the tree, not even blinking as the kunai whizzed past his head. "Not giving up already, are you?" he asked. 

I briefly wondered how terrible an idea the fireball jutsu would be to use in an area like this, filled with trees, before I dismissed it. "Do you need a nap or something?" I returned.

"I'm not _that_ old," Kakashi answered. It almost sounded petulant. 

Naruto landed next to me. "Try not to give him ammunition next time, will you?" I said. 

"It's not like I meant to!" 

"You know…" Kakashi drawled, "I'm not sure how I feel about being talked under." He leapt down from the branch.

We scattered. Or at least, I scattered. Naruto tried to throw a kunai at Kakashi again, except from far too close. What was he doing?

Kakashi immediately deflected the kunai right back at Naruto— who disappeared in a cloud of smoke. 

The kunai pierced the rancid block of tofu, which squirted foul looking off-green liquid both in Kakashi's direction and mine before it fell to the ground, draining the rest of its mold-dappled liquid into the soil. I was just out of range, and could barely resist the urge to gag at the smell. My stomach roiled in protest. Kakashi fared far worse: the liquid got him right in the mask. 

There was a brief moment as his visible eye widened, he made a gagging sound as he clasped his hands on his knees, actually dropping the bells, and I realized Naruto had made a serious tactical error, the reasons for which were slowly piecing together. If things weren't going to be wildly different before, they definitely were now. 

I ran for the bells, skidding past Kakashi to grab them, and bolted in the same direction Sakura had earlier. "Run!" was the only thing I shouted, before I went into the trees. 

Naruto joined me shortly after, laughing. "Did you see that!? We really got him!" 

"You just effectively stink bombed a _Hatake_ at point blank range," I told him, as everything came together. "They're _supposed_ to have a good sense of smell!" I wasn't sure exactly what bit of the series I was remembering that from, but it seemed reasonable enough. "He was only _toying_ with us before this!"

"Oh, yeah," Naruto went, his laughter cutting off entirely. "I really messed that up didn't I? We need a new plan, huh?" He started to take the lead as we approached the trapped section of woods. We had layered them too thick earlier to do anything but go single file. I wondered if this was going to backfire on us later. Probably. This was too much to get away with. 

" _Yeah_."

"We should find Sakura and see if she has any ideas!" Honestly, _that_ wasn't a bad idea. 

"Sounds fine to me." I wondered how much of a head start we had over Kakashi. Assuming that his moment of weakness was more a combination of utter shock and being temporarily overwhelmed from the smell, instead of actually being completely incapacitated, I doubted it would last that long. This was not going to be a great time. 

Something went off behind us. Naruto nervously laughed, and sped up, pushing further ahead with his next leap ahead. "How much trouble do you think we're in?" 

"We aren't dead," I answered, "So maybe not that much?" 

A tree ahead and to the right of us burst into flame, sending the shuriken speeding out from its trap in wild, unpredictable arcs. 

I barely tore my eyes away from staring at it before I missed the next branch and lost all momentum. "I take that back." On the one hand he might not be aiming directly at us, but I couldn't come up with any positives to this. 

"SAKUUUUURA! SAKURA!" Naruto started shouting. "WE MESSED UP! WE MESSED UP!" 

"What? What happened?" Sakura's face peeked out from one of the few safe trees ahead, looking confused. "Wasn't I supposed to try and use genjutsu when he got in here?" 

Within a few bounds, we reached the branch Sakura was waiting on, Naruto still speeding ahead. I was just surprised he was still able to remember where the safe path was. I grabbed at her wrist as we passed by, pulling her behind me, ignoring her surprised yell. "Naruto stink bombed him and now we're in deep trouble!" I looked behind just long enough to make sure she was still following. 

In spite of her surprise and forced start, she was keeping up. "But you have the bells, don't you? Doesn't that mean the test is over?" 

"Doesn't count! We pissed him off!" I really should probably hand at least one of the bells off, but I had a feeling losing momentum right now would be a bad idea. 

"But—"  
  
"Evasion now, talking later!" Naruto shouted. He was really taking playing team leader seriously. 

The tension only built as we went through the trees, before Naruto came to a sudden stop, immediately turning around so quickly that I nearly clipped into him. "Wha—"

"Naruto!" 

"The tree's wrong— the tree's wrong! Back back back back!" was the only babbling explanation we got. 

"What do you _mean_ the tree's wrong!? How can a tree be wrong!?" Sakura questioned. Even so, she was still at least taking Naruto's lead and was now ahead of me, just from having the advantage of that little bit of time to turn around sooner. 

From the vague direction we had left Naruto's 'wrong tree' behind, we heard an exploding clash of metal bursting outward. That was definitely not a right tree. As far as I was aware, Naruto from the show wouldn't have been able to figure out genjutsu at this point, so it left the question of how he had figured it out, but— wasn't really the time. 

It turned out that trying to make a giant trap against a jounin of Kakashi's level was a bit beyond the skill level of completely fresh genin, even with some smarts and teamwork added. Who could possibly have guessed? 

After a while, I wasn't sure how long we had spent evading what were becoming increasingly close calls from our various traps being set off by Kakashi, but ahead of me, Sakura was beginning to flag. "Let Sakura take the lead," I called up ahead to Naruto. "We can't keep this pace up."

"I'm _fine_!" she tried to insist. She sounded breathy even with her protest. 

"Huh?" Naruto looked back just long enough to glance at Sakura, before he turned back around. One of the shuriken traps ahead went off, with barely enough time for any of us to stop before we jumped right into the thickest part of its stream. We were forced to stop, even if it was only for a moment. "Sakura, you coulda said something!" 

She huffed. "I can keep up!" she insisted. While I felt sweaty— and I didn't want to think how disgusting from sweat Naruto's jumpsuit could be from all of this— Sakura was absolutely drenched. She looked exhausted and worn down. 

"For now maybe," I pointed out. "Take the lead."

"But Naruto was the one who laid all the traps!" she tried. 

"And? You were paying attention, too, weren't you? It's not like you're dumb," I pointed out. "We're having too many close calls, Kakashi's playing with us, _take the lead_." I shoved one of the bells into one of her hands. 

She stared at me and then the bell in shock. "...Okay." She sounded a bit firmer. 

I threw the other one to Naruto. He was too busy staring at Sakura, and barely realized it was heading towards him until the last moment, which sent him scrambling to grab it without falling out of the tree. 

"Getting tired?" Kakashi's voice floated out from somewhere. He didn't sound lazy. 

Sakura and Naruto's eyes widened. She steeled herself. "Right." Without any further hesitation, Sakura jumped in the direction of the stream of shuriken, which stopped just before she reached it. 

Naruto had followed without a thought. 

I kept up the rear. I could have swapped with Naruto, but the idea didn't sit right with me; he was too easily distracted and keeping him in the middle was better, since it was now obvious Kakashi had decided to change the terms of his test. We had turned them over entirely on our own, just by building what was now clear was an incredibly stupid death trap and stink bombing him, so it only stood to reason he would see it differently as well. Whatever the case was, we were probably going to be stuck at this until whenever it was noon. I realized with a start that I was getting way too invested in this.

Sakura's approach turned out to be different in a way I didn't expect from Naruto's. She hadn't just paid attention to the safe path we had made, but the spots Kakashi had already set off. Instead of sticking to the single route we had made, she was sometimes carving through these weak points and sometimes forcing us to go through sections that were still rigged to trigger. It was a bizarre combination of intelligence and brute forcing what was basically a giant puzzle. 

"Is it just me or is this starting to get easy?" Naruto asked, mid-leap. 

Before I could even tell him to not tempt fate, the branch Sakura had just landed on broke under her. With a shout of surprise, she fell to the ground, Naruto roughly landing right after her. I was the only one who had the chance to stop, and jump to join them.

"You really need to think before you say things like that," I muttered under my breath as I landed. It suddenly occurred to me that at some point in the last few seconds I had armed myself, a kunai in my off hand and shuriken in the other. I hadn't even noticed. Behind me, Sakura and Naruto were getting up. 

"Interesting," Kakashi said, as he emerged from the trees. His thumbs were hooked into his pockets.

I experimentally threw a shuriken. 

He caught it on a finger. I don't know what I was expecting. Sakura and Naruto walked over to stand next to me, taking defensive positions. 

"You three turned out _very_ different from what I was expecting." His gaze leveled on all of us. "From what I understood, I was supposed to be getting a loner prodigy," Sasuke. "An unfocused troublemaker," Naruto. "And a fangirl." Sakura. While technically right, I wondered if he was projecting again. Probably.

"In my opinion, none of you should be going back to the academy." Oh, I knew what was coming now.

Sakura and Naruto cheered. 

"None of you deserve to be shinobi." There we go, that was the other shoe I was expecting. 

"What!? Why?" Naruto protested.

Kakashi threw the shuriken behind him with a flick of his wrist.

A few seconds later, we could hear the thud of kunai driving into a tree. 

"You completely flouted the parameters of the test." He honestly had a point. We had done our own thing completely without much consideration for what he had planned. And in my case, I had even known what he had planned, so it was entirely on purpose. 

"Hey! We still got the bells!" Naruto protested. 

"Did you, though? Sasuke was the one who grabbed them." He hadn't seen the hand-off, then. 

I opened my empty hands, holding the palms out to him. "You never said that I had to keep the bells." As I said that, Sakura and Naruto pulled out the bells I had given to them. 

"You didn't take the threat of being sent back to the academy that seriously, did you?" he asked me. "I can always recommend that you be completely dismissed instead and barred from becoming a shinobi. Unless, of course, you take the bells back, and I'll just tell the Hokage the other two should be stripped of their status instead." That would have gone a long way in fomenting distrust and actually ruining everything if I was actually Sasuke. 

The other two gasped.

"Bastard!" Naruto was glowering at Kakashi rather impressively now. 

"I don't need to be a shinobi if it comes down to it," I said, frankly. _I_ definitely didn't and the whole series had underlined different avenues anyways, not that they really mattered.

"But, Sasuke-!" Sakura looked torn. 

"I think the Hokage is at least supposed to be a ninja, though. Otherwise Naruto would be the most embarrassing one ever."

"What?" Naruto looked confused, but turned his attention back on Kakashi. "Hey, you bastard! You can't just make people pick like that!" 

"Can't I?" Kakashi asked, lazily. Before I even had time to process it, he moved forward, and I was suddenly driven to the ground, dirt filling my mouth. It tasted like dirt, at least. "Sakura! Kill Naruto, or Sasuke dies." My head was held down at an angle where the only thing I could see was earth and Sakura and Naruto's feet.

"Ah!"

"What?!"

"Shinobi make hard choices," Kakashi said. "And they don't always have easy or obvious answers. Sometimes people will die based on your decisions. You three worked together today, but was it just from chance? Or because you were actually aware of the importance of teamwork?" 

"You're a jounin," I said, spitting dirt out of my mouth. Kakashi helpfully ground me into the dirt again, making that earlier effort completely pointless. That had to be on purpose. He clearly held me partially accountable for the tofu incident. "We're genin. Any fight against you is going to be so ridiculously weighed in your favor by default to the point of futility together, much less on our own."

"You would know all about that, wouldn't you?" Kakashi said, idly from above me. "And the two of you? What do you have to say for yourselves?" My eyes widened as I felt the tip of cold metal poke against the back of my neck. This was starting to feel a bit too realistic for my tastes. 

"I think you're a real asshole!" Naruto's contribution was both completely indignant and useless.

"About teamwork," Kakashi elaborated, "But I'll take that into consideration… hm. Never." 

"Naruto!" I could see the scuffle of feet, as one set stayed firm and another were dragged back from an attempted lunge. 

"If you think teamwork is so important, then why are you trying to sabotage it?" Sakura asked. She sounded extremely frustrated. "What's the point of your stupid test anyways if it's set up so no one can pass it?" Oh, this wasn't just turning into a vent, this was an _honors student style breakdown_. This was starting to devolve for her from 'potentially separated from her crush' to 'first brush with failure for no real reason but the whims of another'. "Have you even ever _passed_ anyone, if this is how you run your stupid test?! What's the point of a _jounin instructor_ who doesn't want to teach!?" 

"It's more of a required duty billet than a volunteer status," Kakashi said. He sounded slightly baffled that he was even explaining that to Sakura, whose voice had started to take on a shrill tone near the end. "Any other last words?" 

"If you even think you're gonna stop any of us from being ninja, you're wrong!" Naruto insisted. "Believe it! I don't care _how_ long or how hard we have to train, we'll make it! Even if I have to fight the old man over it! You don't get to play some stupid head-games and try and make us fight each other and destroy our dreams!" 

"Hmm. Is that really how you feel?" Kakashi asked, languidly. 

"Yeah!"

"Then, I guess… you pass." The pressure on my head and the small of my back let up, and I carefully sat up, after spitting out the second helping of dirt. Once I confirmed that Kakashi wasn't just waiting to give me a third mouthful of forest soil, I stood up. 

"What!?"

"Huh?"

"That whole thing—" Sakura cut herself off, though I couldn't help but notice that both of her hands were balled into fists. I wondered how far Kakashi would have to push before she eventually tried to punch him. 

"Was a test!" Kakashi's single visible eye crinkled into a smile. "You're the first ones to pass. Everyone else has done what I've said, neglecting or even sacrificing their teammates." 

"I knew it," Sakura muttered under her breath. 

"Ninja must be able to see underneath the underneath. Those who break the rules are trash," Kakashi said, ignoring Sakura's comment and eying me, "But those who would abandon their teammates are worse than trash." 

"What about the bells and alarm?" Sakura asked. The fact that the test she thought was the focus wasn't what it was about at all, after what she'd been put through today was apparently still getting to her. She wasn't letting him get off that easy, apparently. 

"Oh, I'd like the bells back. And as for the time…" He gestured for us to look up.

Past the treetops, the position the sun was in was far beyond what it should have been for noon. 

I groaned. 

"What!?"

"Oh no…" 

"You were running for your lives an extra three hours," Kakashi said, cheerfully. "Now, I'd love to let you all eat, but I didn't book this training ground for the full day and they issue fines if there's too many weapons and the like left over. You have… maybe an hour to clean up? Unless you want to start your careers as genin in debt, of course." 

Naruto squawked in protest, and Sakura looked like she was giving serious consideration to shouting at Kakashi again. 

"Oh, and I will say, you should probably do it as fast as you can. They might actually have to pay chuunin to dismantle those traps you put up. We'll have to do it again for training sometime, it'll be a good experience for you."

"Aagh! We get it, we get it!" Without giving us a chance to move, Naruto grabbed both Sakura's arm and mine, dragging us behind as he started running for the nearest still-armed trap. 

The last thing I remembered before it started to fade away to warm sunlight was Sakura yelling at Naruto for triggering a burst of shuriken too close to her face.

* * *

I rolled over and stuffed my face into the mattress in an attempt to ignore the light coming in through the blinds, before I grunted reluctantly, peeling my face from the sheets to look at my phone. 

It was edging past ten AM. While I didn't have any classes I had to go in for today— thanks be to God for Monday-Wednesday classes that did _not_ also spill into Friday— I had still volunteered to help with a college-level open house for the department due to start at noon. The free food was a _strong_ incentive, but right at this moment nothing was more tempting than to not move and indulge in this short, perfect moment of laziness. 

Though...

If I showered and got ready now, I'd have enough time to grab and enjoy a coffee from the indie place across from campus instead of settling for whatever budget coffee resided in the dollar donation coffee urn in the departmental office or the heavily roasted nonsense sold at the cafe inside the campus library.

Before I could debate any longer, my phone rang, and I suppressed the urge to sigh when I saw the caller ID display on the screen. No avoiding this. It'd put off the shower, but I could still get everything else ready instead. 

" _Hola, mamá… "_


	4. The Same Last Dream Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Worries emerge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to drowsyivy and Tavina for beta-reading.

I stared in disbelief as Naruto wrestled with the large cat that was trying to escape from his grasp.

"I repeat: are you sure this is the target, Tora?" Kakashi's voice filtered into my ear.

I internally crushed the desire to swear as a mix of thoughts and memory metaphorically smashed into the back of my head, all around the efforts we had gone to towards catching this cat. 'We'. 

"Yes," I finally answered through a clenched jaw, speaking into the headset.

What the fuck. While I was becoming resigned to these dreams, suddenly _knowing_ what 'I' had been up to and even thinking right before this was... I resisted the urge to shudder. I wasn't sure why, considering that Naruto was busy struggling with the still-writhing cat and Sakura was trying to help without getting scratched herself. They probably wouldn't have noticed.

"Good. The lost pet 'Tora' search mission is complete," Kakashi responded. The headset crackled slightly. "I'll meet you at the rendezvous point."

Back to the mission desk, he meant. A small part of me hated that I knew that.

I looked over at the ongoing struggle between jinchuuriki and housecat, before I stepped over closer. "Here, let me take the cat, and then take your jacket off so we can wrap Tora up in it," I told Naruto.

Both the cat and Naruto stopped for a moment to stare at me in surprise, before the cat started fighting against Naruto even more, yowling.

"Ah!"

I reached in as quickly as I could, yanking the cat out of Naruto's arms and squashed Tora against my chest, doing my best to prevent the upset animal from pushing its legs out to try to shred me in turn. It really was a desperate cat, which made sense, considering what awaited it. "Naruto! Your jacket!"

Naruto had already sat back up, and was fighting with the zipper pull. Somehow, cat fur had managed to get stuck along the zip in the earlier struggle. "I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying!" he said. Not too long after, he managed to force it open, and he flung the jacket off, one sleeve turned inside out in the rush.

"Sakura, hold the jacket out," I gritted. Tora managed to force a paw out, and reached out to claw at my face. I pushed the cat away just in time to avoid it, and in the direction of the now waiting jacket.

After a short moment of flailing, we had the cat firmly and tightly swaddled in Naruto's jacket, only with the head popped out. Tora gave all of us a narrow eyed expression of feline displeasure.

"Wow, I can't believe that worked." Naruto grinned and wiped his face with the back of his hand, but not before I realized that there were a few droplets of welling blood mixed with the glisten of sweat. His face, on the other hand, showed no signs of scratching. Huh. It was also a bit weird to see him without the jacket. Underneath, he was wearing a blue t-shirt with his usual spiral, embossed in white in the front.

"I'd hope it worked," I muttered. 

"That was so smart, Sasuke," Sakura said, fluttering her eyes at me. She looked a bit bedraggled, from her own earlier attempt at grabbing Tora before we had finally given up on separate approaches.

I couldn't believe this one cat had taken so much effort, but it made sense, if Tora was regularly trying to escape from Madame Shijimi. The daimyo had shinobi as well, after all, and it wouldn't have surprised me if some of them had ended up dragged into attempting to capture the cat at some point or another, slowly pushing Tora into developing enough evasion skills that the cat would rarely be able to be captured by anything _but_ ninja. It was just Tora's luck to try and mount an escape in the middle of Konoha instead of the capital or any of the daimyo's homes.

I didn't like the fact that some of those thoughts had floated into my head like they were facts. 

"Not really," was the only answer I gave Sakura.

"Now we can get Tora back and get a better mission!" Naruto pumped his fist. "No more of these stupid D-ranks!"

Sakura looked dubious while she picked up our balled-up cat captive. "Do you really think we'd get something better so soon?" Tora yowled piteously.

"Are you kidding? Kakashi-sensei's been murdering us with training! We're so far beyond this!" he declared. He started to walk, hands behind his head. 

"I wouldn't bet on that," I said with a shrug, as Sakura and I joined him. "It still took us time to find a cat." One that had been inspired by unworldly forces, considering how long it took us to find her, but I didn't want to think about that or the fact I even remembered that. Was remembering things from inside a dream from before dreams started even a thing? How the hell would you even look something like that up?

The walk from this forested section within the walls to the administrative center that shared the academy's building didn't help my mood any.

Sakura and Naruto's chatter tried to pull me into their separate tracks of conversation a few times, but I ignored them.

Instead, I only found myself taking everything around me in. It was with an unpleasant start I realized that even with the rarer aspects where the anime or manga would pan or give focus to Konoha, it wasn't really comparable to this, as we walked down a main thoroughfare. Storefronts on the ground floor took the attention of most of the foot traffic, with the windows of the floors above providing hints to the people who lived inside. My head was just filling way too much in for it to be just the show. Was I going nuts? Retreating more and more into an imaginary mindscape in my dreams?

Even the size of the building— more of a grouped complex, with multiple added sections of slightly different styles and age— that housed the academy and what was the shinobi side of the village's administrative system was large, I realized. Much larger than it would need to be if it was just a single class of genin graduating every year.

Kakashi was waiting up ahead for us, just in front of the doors. He had his book out. Even from this far away, we could see the occasional civilian filter in or out, giving him a wide berth as soon as they realized what he was reading.

I pulled off the headset and clicked it off, as we reached him, scowling as I realized that I had known how to do even that unconsciously.

He tilted his head slightly as he took in the wrapped-up cat in Sakura's arms. "A bit unorthodox, but I can't say I'm surprised." He held his empty hand out. "Headsets, please. They took my name down for checking those out, and I'd rather not have to fill out more paperwork than I have to." There was a thoughtful pause. "Of course, I _could_ teach you three to do the paperwork."

Sakura gave him a disgusted look. "You're the one who's supposed to do all of that! You aren't shoving your work onto us more than you already do."

"Ah, but it's not my fault the trap course you three came up with is so effective, is it? It's much better than anything I could have come up with," he rejoined. 

I somehow doubted that, and I dropped my headset into his hand before taking the balled-up cat from Sakura so she could remove hers.

Tora seemed to realize deliverance was soon upon her, and was at this point yowling loudly.

Naruto eagerly pulled his off, dropping it into Kakashi's palm in a way that resulted in the wires getting wrapped around the rest. Kakashi's visible eye momentarily squinted into a wince. He deserved it. Maybe not whatever chuunin was inevitably in charge of the communications equipment Kakashi was going to return, but still.

I stuffed my fingers down past the gap we had left for Tora's head and grabbed at what scruff on her neck I could, before adjusting my hold to turn the rest of the cat around. "You should probably take the jacket off before we get accused of mistreating the Daimyo's wife's cat," I grumbled.

Naruto eyed the cat, and began to delicately untie the sleeves. Tora screamed.

I was really beginning to dislike this cat.

One jacket removal later, we finally entered and headed for the mission area, where we were immediately swarmed by Madame Shijimi herself, who immediately snatched the cat from my hands. 

"Ohh! Tora-chan! My cute little Tora-chan!" She was completely ignoring the cat's increasingly desperate yowls and attempts to escape as she smashed her face against the cat's. I didn't quite feel guilty enough about returning the cat as I probably should have.

Once the mission completion was finalized and Madame Shijimi paid the chuunin clerk, we watched as she shoved Tora into the cat carrier she brought with her. "Thank you so much for the job your lovely genin did, Hiruzen-san!" she called over to the hokage, before she left. "Tell your son hello for me!"

Well, at least we weren't the only ones who got to have some residual embarrassment from that whole mission. Even Iruka, who was helping with the clerical duties, looked awkward at having to witness that one-sided exchange. Was he off from the academy for awhile since his class had just graduated, or was this just a part of some regular additional duties for him?

"Anyways..." The Sandaime managed to feign a cough around his pipe when we walked over. "The next missions on offer that your team is eligible for are..." he lifted a scroll, which was marked with a 'D' at the top. Existing in the context of being a Japanese series, that part made sense, but within the world itself, trying to think on it just gave me a headache. "An elder's grandson requires babysitters-" Leaving the question of exactly what sort of hell-child required three genin to watch it. "-shopping in one of the outlying villages-" Boring, but possibly not too bad, but could also be just as painful. "-Or to help with potato digging." To plant potatoes or to harvest potatoes? That one was clearly just manual labor.

"No! No more D-ranks!" Naruto protested. "I want to do something actually cool for once! Find us a better one!"

Kakashi audibly sighed and Sakura looked annoyed.

Iruka stood up and slammed his palms on the desk. "You're just genin!" he shouted. "Everyone starts off with simple duties and missions! You're supposed to work your way _up_ from D-ranks!"

Naruto looked ready to burst. I figured now was as good a time to ask as any. "How does that work for you since you're an academy teacher?"

"I don't-" Iruka blinked as he realized he had started to go off on the wrong genin, expecting Naruto to respond instead. "Uh. It's my off-cycle?" he tried to answer. "We aren't immediately given a new class after our old one graduates, outside of extenuating circumstances. I wouldn't be a very good teacher if I didn't have a chance to do some work outside of the academy to refresh my skills," Iruka explained. "We all do some clerical work, missions, and rotate through a few different departments for a few months before we take on a new class."

The Hokage nodded in approval at Iruka's explanation. "Which is why D-ranks have the variety they do."

"They're still crappy missions," Naruto grumbled, though my question and Iruka's answer had partially satiated his complaints.

"They're supposed to give you time to develop your skills before moving on to more difficult missions!" Iruka swatted Naruto's head with the B-rank scroll.

"What do you think we're doing every day!" Naruto shouted, covering his head. "We go and train and risk getting caught on fire and hit with kunai because Kakashi-sensei decided our stupid obstacle course was a great idea, and then we have to go and catch cats and weed plants and shop for old grannies!?"

Iruka's attention switched to Kakashi. "Fire jutsu already? And you're throwing kunai at them!? They just graduated!" Iruka actually looked like he was seriously considering a throwdown against Kakashi.

"Technically they're throwing the kunai at themselves, since it's all trap based," Kakashi answered, lazily. "They came up with it; I just thought it was a good idea to keep up. Besides, they have an Uchiha on their team; they have to get used to a little bit of friendly fire."

I didn't know how I felt about that, besides mildly insulted, which I was also somewhat uncomfortable with being.

The Hokage pulled his pipe away for a moment. "Recently-graduated genin receive D-rank missions. That's the policy."

"Yeah? Well, maybe it's a dumb policy!" Naruto insisted. "We can do better! Give us the chance to prove it! You might think I'm still the same troublemaking brat I was before, but I'm not! I'm a ninja now, and so are Sasuke and Sakura!"

"Fine." The Hokage returned his pipe to his mouth and gave it a strong puff, sending an o-ring of smoke into the air. "I'll give you a C-rank."

While I was expecting this, Kakashi didn't seem to be. He actually slumped over.

"It's a protective detail." Hiruzen's eyes glanced down at the scroll of C-lists; I already knew which one it was, but apparently it was distinct enough that Iruka began to go through the paperwork on the desk in front of him without needing further details. 

"Really?" Naruto jumped in excitement. "Who? Who? I bet it's someone cool, or- oh! Is it a princess?"

The Hokage snorted. "Calm down."

Naruto looked somewhat deflated, but to my surprise didn't argue back, if only likely because it'd defeat the point he just made.

"Let him in," the Hokage said, not to anyone in particular that I could tell.

The door on the other side of the room opened, and the gray haired bridge builder entered, already taking a performative chug from the bottle he had. My interest was piqued more by the fact that before the door closed behind him I was able to see that it was some kind of waiting room. It made sense to have some kind of waiting area.

"You're really saddling me with a bunch of brats?" Tazuna announced, louder than necessary. I wondered if he was actually drunk or just playing it up. If it was the second, he was doing a good job of it, and none of the experienced ninja nearby were giving any hint on their faces that they suspected it was otherwise. "And what's with the the short one with the stupid face? Are these kids even ninja?"

Naruto, interestingly enough, made a face immediately. "What!? I'm not short and I'm not stupid!" Apparently not, since something had changed enough for him to realize he was the one being insulted. "I just haven't got my growth spurt in yet!"

Sakura and I ended up exchanging a look over the blond's head. Kakashi clamped his hand down on Naruto's neck, warningly.

"I'm the master bridge builder Tazuna," he said, taking another swig. "I expect you to guard me with your lives until I return to Wave and complete the bridge I'm working on, even though you're all brats."

I half expected Naruto's temper to flare up this time, but instead after grinding his teeth together he met Tazuna's eyes. "Yeah, well, I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and if you think you're gonna get to me like that, you're wrong! We're gonna do our job, even if it kills us!"

"It's a C-rank," Kakashi reminded him, dragging Naruto back. "No one's dying here," he said, boredly. "My name is Hatake Kakashi, Tazuna-san, and these are my students. We will meet you at the gate in an hour."

Tazuna seemed satisfied enough by Kakashi's introduction and gave a brusque nod before he left the building.

"What a jerk," Sakura said under her breath.

The jounin gave a half-lidded look at the Hokage and Iruka. "Mission details?"

Iruka already had the full paperwork in hand. "Tazuna-san requested capable ninja for body-guarding for his return to Wave and for the time it takes to finish a bridge he is working on. Listed concerns are robbers and highwaymen."

"Robbers and highwaymen..." Kakashi repeated, under his breath. "It will do." He turned his attention to us again, letting go of Naruto and giving him a slight shove towards me. "Standard load-out for a week," he told us. "I'm not checking your bags; use your own discretion. I'll meet you at the gate." 

Kakashi eyed the Hokage speculatively, and before the elderly shinobi could even say anything, darted over to one of the windows, opened it, and bolted out.

The Hokage sighed and looked at us. "Don't pick up his habits."

"I'd rather die first," Sakura told him.

He didn't seem to know how to take that response. 

Naruto pumped his fist, doing a little stamping dance where he stood. "Yessss!" He stopped, stood as straight as he could, and tossed a sloppy two fingered salute towards Iruka. "Just watch, Iruka-sensei! We're gonna come back from this one experienced, and then you'll just have to give us more C-ranks! I'm gonna out-rank you in no time!"

Iruka laughed, sounding amused. "We'll see about that," he told Naruto, good naturedly. "Just make sure you pay attention and come back safely."

"Yeah!" Without any warning, Naruto dragged Sakura and I towards the door out, only stopping in the middle of opening it to turn towards the Hokage and shout, "That hat is gonna be mine soon, old man! Believe it!"

Even from this distance, I could see the Hokage's eyes roll before the door closed behind us.

Sakura heaved a sigh as she shoved Naruto's arm off her, before she started walking. "Since we're supposed to meet the client there in an hour, we're going to just have enough time to pack," she said. "I hope my mom is home. I don't want to just leave a note before we go..." Sakura looked thoughtful. She started to think out loud. "If we're packing for a week, and we're heading to Wave... Ugh, I'm going to need a couple changes of clothes... I don't even know how many kunai I should bring..."

Naruto scuffed the side of his sandal self-consciously at Sakura's comment. "You think Kaka-sensei's actually gonna show up on time?" he asked. "I mean, it's not like he's shown up on time for anything as it is."

"He can get away with being late with us," I said, finally speaking up, as we walked down the main street leading away from the building. "And with D-ranks, since genin can do those alone." After the first few, he had actually started to only show up roughly half the time we were supposed to meet for a D-rank. Again, creeping horror edged up the back of my neck at the fact that that knowledge and the annoyance that came with it had just come into being like that. "I doubt he'd pull it with a client that's going to take us out of the village, much less into a different country." I couldn't keep the frustration out of my voice.

"Sasuke's right," Sakura added. "Make sure you're actually packed properly this time, Naruto." She eyed him. "If we do this fast enough, we can at least double check each other's gear. Meet at my house?"

"Yeah!"

I silently nodded.

Despite my conflicting feelings and thoughts, as we split off in different directions, I found myself briskly walking, mostly on main streets and through the occasional side path, heading 'home', until I reached a sizable apartment building. It wasn't too far away from the academy, and also was on the same side of the village as the Uchiha compound was. Roughly halfway between both locations, I realized. Deliberate. It only soured my mood further, especially when I came to the door that I realized was supposed to be into 'my' apartment and immediately unlocked it without hesitating. Not mine. _Sasuke's_ apartment.

I closed the door behind me and pulled the sandals off.

Inside, it had a sort of organized neatness to it I wouldn't have expected from most kids this age, much less a boy. It was actually in less disarray than my own apartment was, at this point in the semester. And yet... it was probably because of the sparse, almost empty feeling to it.

This was not a very lived in apartment, even for being a one room style studio. The desk near the bed was nearly bare, with only an organizer tray of pens and pencils, a single notebook, and sharpening tools. 

An uchiwa in the clan colors was on the wall above the bed.

I inhaled, fell face forward onto the bed, and screamed into the mattress.

“Sometimes, letting it all out was supposed to help” was my counselor's advice. In this case, it did not make me feel any better that I was apparently losing my damn mind. For _dreams._

I finally rolled over and stared blankly at the ceiling before I sat up.

I could just give up and wait until I woke up, but everything about the past dreams just told me that would be an interminable, potentially dreadfully long wait, and I had no idea how long _this_ one would last. I hated this.

I walked into the bathroom, slipping feet into the slippers at its door and looked at the mirror. I had no idea what I was expecting. The features of Sasuke's face looked back at me. Pale skin, dark eyes, dark hair that was thick yet feathery enough that only the bangs at the front had enough length and weight to them to naturally stay down. Puberty had not yet widened the jaw of the face I saw reflecting back at me. I ran fingers across the engraved Leaf symbol on the hitai-ate. It felt cold.

"No," I said out loud. It was still the young undeveloped voice of a preteen boy.

Even alone, I was still Sasuke. I inhaled and stepped back away from the mirror before I punched it. It wouldn't do me any good. I left the bathroom and its slippers behind.

Why the fuck did it have to be Sasuke?

I breathed out. All I had to do was... just go along with things until I woke up, for however long. And maybe stop sleeping entirely? Or at least partially? I might not be able to pull 74 hours awake for papers or just because I could like I did back in high school and my first years in college, but a little bit of sleep deprivation couldn't backfire that badly.

Going along with things still meant I had to pack. Standard load-out... I walked over to where the gear bag was sitting on the floor by the window, and opened it up to take a look. It was filled the same as from Kakashi's test, but the kunai and shuriken within had seen _much_ better days. The trap based obstacle course must have really been doing a number on everything. Some looked overly dulled from abuse, and there was even a surprising quantity that had that particular reflective quality of metal unevenly heated, some of which had scorch and soot marks. Most looked like they were probably in good enough condition to take, but there were enough that would need to be sorted out.

Instead, I turned the bag out and dumped all of its contents on the floor and went searching. If _I_ used weapons that had a high turnover rate enough to warrant regular replacement, where would I store extras in here?

I found Sasuke's weapon stash the first place I looked, in a drawer under the bed. As useful as that was, I wasn't very happy that my first instinct was right. I pulled out a few still tied-together braces of kunai and shuriken, setting them on the top of the bed before I closed the drawer.

In less time than I had expected it to take, I ended up having everything laid out on the bed, ready for packing. A few changes of clothes, a medical kit I had found inside the closet that was far beyond what I would consider for normal first aid, weapons, and an ultra lightweight kit for camping. A short look through the tiny kitchen found rations, which I also had thrown into the mix.

Nothing seemed off to me, so I quickly went through what I had dumped earlier, separating out what was too dulled from abuse and would need time to be sharpened, and any shuriken that had been bent or warped enough to ruin their shape. Some of those I slotted right into the leg holster, rather than put with the rest.

Packing after that was, disturbingly, almost automatic. Practiced, and I wasn't consciously making choices as I put everything in. I eyed the filled pack with discomfort before I closed it up.

I wondered what it said about me, that I was giving into the details even with everything.

I pulled the bag up onto my shoulders. As I walked towards the door to the outside, I paused as I passed by the bathroom, staring at the mirror again. The face might not have been mine, but the sour expression was.

I left the apartment in a sulk, letting my— Sasuke's— legs take me to Sakura's, hands jammed into my pockets. 

It was a slightly different route, and I would have preferred being on my lonesome, but it seemed that wasn't going to happen, because I heard excited shouting behind me.

"Hey! Hey! Sasuke!" Naruto's voice called to me.

I stopped and turned.

The blond boy hurried to join me. His bag looked overstuffed, and he had barely managed to close it shut. "Isn't this great? A C-rank! And we're leaving the village!"

I smiled wanly. "Right."

He was so excited that he barely seemed to notice. "We're going to show everyone! Do you think Sakura's finished packing? I bet she is, but then again she's got to make everything perfect but..."

I tuned him out as it turned into only rambling.

Eventually we came onto the residential street that the Haruno family lived on. Sakura was leaning against an outside wall, her bag not in sight. "There you are!" she said, when she spotted us. 

Without warning, she stepped forward, grabbing me and Naruto by the wrists, pulling us towards her front door, and inside from there.

"Kaa-chan, Naruto and Sasuke are here!" she called, before removing her sandals and stepping away from the genkan.

Sakura's house was cheerily lit inside, with a lived-in atmosphere. From where we were, we could see into the kitchen, where Sakura's mother was, washing dishes. She stopped, and looked at us for a moment. While she looked cheerful, her gaze seemed to pause on Naruto, almost cautious, before she finally said anything. I could feel Naruto freeze up next to me, and saw him pause with one hand in the middle of taking off a sandal. "So you're her teammates!" she said, putting on a smile. "Sakura's said so much about you both!" She brought up a sudsy hand up to her face.

"It's nice to meet you," I said, slowly. I glanced at Naruto, whose earlier cheer seemed to have melted away. While Sakura's mother wasn't treating him with disdain or cruelty, that moment of caution still probably stung. I elbowed him.

"Uhm, yeah," Naruto said, not quite steeling himself. His usual confidence and boisterous had left him, leaving just the lonely orphan. "It's nice to meet you too! Sakura's a great teammate!"

"We're going to go check our gear before we leave!" Sakura announced. She put her hands on her hips, and looked at us. "I have everything in my room. If you've forgotten anything, I might be able to lend you something, but you better give it back!" She walked towards the stairs, turning slightly to beckon us over. Naruto darted immediately to follow, sticking close to her, and I trailed behind.

It was just enough of a delay that I heard Sakura's mother let out a small sigh as we went up the stairs. Her own caution over Naruto being inside her home seemed to have had an impact on her as well. It wasn't until I was at the top of the stairs that she called out "Leave your door open!"

"Yes, Kaa-chan!" Sakura called back, resigned, before she opened her door. Sakura's room, while small, was the essence of pre-teen girl, between the light colors, plethora of mementos, and the soft stuffed animals that rested respectfully at the top of the bed.

Her own bag sat on top of the bed, flap open. She had only half-packed it, to make it easier for double-checking. 

"We'll switch, and double check," Sakura said, deciding without letting us have any input. "I'll check Naruto's, and you can check mine, Sasuke?" She barely turned it into a question, rather than a demand. She had been so close to her forgetting her crush. "And you'll check Sasuke's bag, Naruto."

I shrugged, and set my bag down where I was. 

"Sounds good to me!" Naruto said. His voice was absent its usual cheer, but he was attempting to be louder to make up for it. He stepped back before he set his bag down, so there would be slightly more room for everyone. We walked past each other, and Sakura slipped over towards Naruto's bag, giving it a sidelong look before she opened it.

To be more precise, she at least attempted to open it. When she let loose the straps, the flap burst open on its own, everything inside no longer restrained. "Naruto, what's with all of this?!"

His bag was, if anything, _overpacked_. Besides a few shirts balled up that were the only evidence of any clothing, he had gone overboard on weapons, the giant folded Fuma shuriken catching my eye the most. I remembered with a sudden start that those had shown up in the story for this mission. Naruto had some, but so did Sasuke, didn't he? And I hadn't packed any.

"I want us to be prepared!" Naruto insisted.

"You heard Kakashi-sensei! It's a C-rank! We might not even have to fight!" Sakura tried to argue. She yanked one of the folded blades out, holding it up. "What are you even going to _do_ with this?"

"Throw it at people?"

Sakura's eyes narrowed at him, and she lightly tossed it at him, casually aiming for his head. Naruto squawked, but still caught it, setting it down when he dropped into sitting cross legged on the floor.

Naruto began rooting through what I had packed. When he came across the medical kit, he squinted at it, holding it up. "Uh, isn't this a bit much to bring with us?" he said, as though he hadn't just been accused of going overkill himself. "You don't think we'll get _hurt_ that badly, do you? Because this is one of those really fancy expensive ones and-"

"I want us to be prepared," I said, dryly, before he could keep on rambling. An idle look through of Sakura's things showed that again, she probably wasn't straying from whatever 'standard' meant in this case. Rations, gear for camping outside, tidily packed weapons, and just enough clothes. Exact and precisely packed and balanced.

He made a face at me.

"Ugh, _boys_ ..." Sakura grumbled under her breath. She was only looking more frustrated at Naruto's bag. "Naruto, how are you planning on even _carrying_ all of this if your bag won't even close properly? And instant ramen isn't a ration! Didn't Iruka-sensei dock you for this once?"

"Sure, it is! And he isn't our sensei anymore, and this isn't for a grade! It's fine!"

"We can redistribute things around," I said, before he could argue back. "It'll save us time and that way we don't have to leave anything behind." I looked at Naruto. "Except the ramen. That's not going to be enough unless you want to feel like you're starving half the time. Unless you plan on hunting for food on the way there and back?"

Naruto hung his head. "Fine..."

Sakura pulled out a full stack of instant ramen styrofoam cups- somewhat dented from how they had been packed- and set them on her desk, and then replaced them with ration bars. The bag looked less likely to burst at its seams now, at least, but still overfull. "How did you even manage to fill it up this much?" she wondered.

"Practice!"

"Pass me some of what he has and I'll put it in your bag," I said. "You still have room to spare."

Sakura nodded.

It didn't take long until Naruto's bag was less offensive to Sakura's sense of what was right and orderly, and her own actually looked more filled.

"Hey, Sasuke! Do you mind if I put this in your stuff?" Naruto held up the folded Fuma shuriken Sakura had tossed at him earlier.

"Go for it," I said. I didn't actually care that much.

Naruto's method of packing only left questions. Sakura's neat and organized approach hadn't actually managed to pare down on the worst of the bulk in his, and how I had packed shouldn't have left enough room for something that large. Naruto still managed to slip it in with everything else.

"If I ask you how you even managed to do that, it's going to be the same answer as before, isn't it?" Sakura asked.

Naruto beamed. 

She sighed before clasping her hands together. "I think that's it?" Sakura asked, looking around, double checking everything. "If we leave now, we won't have to worry about being late."

"Sounds fine by me."

"Yeah!"

Grabbing our things and heading back down the steps, Naruto followed me to the door. Sakura went over to her mother, who embraced her in a strong hug. "Look at you! Already leaving on longer missions! It feels just like yesterday you and Ino were still playing with dolls! Soon you're going to be old enough to leave home!" Sakura looked self-conscious, even as she hugged back.

"Kaa-chan, that won't be for ages," Sakura said, when she stepped away, trying to be consoling. "I'll see you and Tou-chan when I get back first thing!"

"Please take care of my daughter," her mother said, actually directly looking at Naruto and me. She seemed to have resolved her earlier Naruto-related feelings, at least. "I'm sure your sensei's showing you everything you need to know!"

Well. "Sakura's skilled enough to look out after herself, too," I answered, in the middle of putting my sandals back on. Sakura flushed pink.

"Yeah!" Naruto seemed less out of his element, with Sakura being the topic. "She's great and real smart!"

"Oh, I see how it is," Sakura's mother said, looking amused. "Is this the boy-"

Sakura's blushing turned into a completely red face. She ran for the genkan, shoving the door open with a smooth action as she quickly picked up her own footwear and hooked her arms around ours with unexpected agility. "Bye Kaa-chan love you tell Tou-chan I love him too we're going to be late bye!" With that, she dragged us out of the house, letting the door close behind her. Whatever else her mother had to say would be a mystery. She sighed in relief.

"Hey, what was that about?" Naruto asked, looking confused. He still had one sandal in one of his hands.

Mine— _no, Sasuke's_ — were at least on.

"Nothing," Sakura insisted, still red in the face. "Nothing."

The blond puffed his cheeks out. "Fine," he answered. "But next time give us a warning!"

"Hmph!" She looked away as she pulled her own sandals on.

I sighed. "Let's just get going."

From here, the gate wasn't that far away at all.

I ended up looking at all the buildings and everything properly this time, as we walked in that direction.

While the show and series had always only shown bits and pieces of the village, it had generally been enough to show that it was fairly built up, and its architecture unique compared to real cities, with the rounded off buildings, presence of ledges and walkways everywhere, densely packed. 

My head had apparently added that up to realize it made the place a maze if you weren't familiar with its streets. While there were straight thoroughfares, not all of them were. Mixed with the blocks of buildings were pockets of dense woods, and some buildings had unobtrusive entrances on second or even third floors. In some areas, I wouldn't be surprised if the residents there would ever even need to come down to the ground level streets. The ninja certainly didn't, but this was all built with them in mind. Everything about Konoha— that I was seeing, at least— would be a free-runner or parkour artist's extremely nerdy dream. Then again, this was my apparently extremely nerdy dream that my unconscious mind had stuck its tenterhooks into and was refusing to let go of.

Soon enough we crossed onto the main street that ran from the gate area, and we were able to see Tazuna. He was being boisterously drunk at one of the gate guards on duty.

The guard was sitting at a table, near a building right at the inside of the gate, inspecting a small booklet in his hand, which he was looking through while ignoring whatever Tazuna was saying. After a while, he came to a page, and popped a metal cylinder out from one of his flak jacket pockets, and turned around to look at the inside, calling in to whoever was in there.

Another bored-looking guard exited, with a metal block in hand, and what looked like a closed compact. The first one set the booklet on the table, as his compatriot opened the compact- showing a bright red interior- and pressed the block against it, before pressing it onto the page. Even here, we could see the red symbol left on the paper. It was a stamp, then. Or a seal? The first ninja pressed his own into the ink as well, before superimposing his on top, and the second went back into the building.

"Huh. I wonder what that's about?" Naruto asked.

"Foreigners who don't live within the village have to present a passport with their credentials and be checked in and out of the village," Kakashi's voice answered, coming out of nowhere.

"Ah! Where'd you come from!?" Naruto startled, twisting around before he finally saw the jounin. He wasn't the only one.

"That's a long story," Kakashi said, deadpan. His backpack was slung over his shoulders, and was probably the only thing keeping him from being in a complete slouch.

Naruto stared at him. "That's not what I meant! Couldn't they just get a second passport or something?"

"They could, but it'd be difficult," Kakashi answered lazily. "Each country's capital handles them for civilians. As a system it's not just useful for us, but for the various daimyo's governments as well."

"What about for us?" Sakura asked.

Kakashi patronizingly patted her head, and she visibly bristled under his hand. "You won't have to worry about that unless you're going to another hidden village, and that won't be happening anytime soon."

"There you are!" Tazuna had finally noticed us. He slipped the booklet into a side pocket of his own pack and walked over towards us, bottle still in hand.

"Here we are," Kakashi echoed. I wondered if he was going to end up being bored enough to pull his book out.

"Let's go!" Naruto shouted enthusiastically. His momentary insecurities from earlier seemed to have vanished just by being near the gate.

Sakura gave him a quizzical look. "Are you really that excited for this mission?"

Naruto laughed self consciously, but it didn't remove his eager expression. "I've never left the village before. This will be the first time!" As if to underline this, he consciously stepped forward, stopping right at the demarcation line where the gates would close, and then stepped past that until he was clear of the wall's border entirely. He pumped his fist.

"We could have picked any kind of D-rank for that..." Sakura said quietly under her breath, staring at him in disbelief.

Tazuna gazed doubtfully at Naruto, before giving Kakashi a derisive look. "Am I really going to be safe with this brat?"

"I'm a jounin, you'll be fine." Kakashi flapped one of his hands, as though physically dismissing the older man's concerns.

Naruto glared, but, surprising me yet again, didn't burst into a full onset of temper. "Yeah, well, one day I'm going to become Hokage! And you'll remember saying all of this and doubting me, and you're gonna have to acknowledge me! Believe it!"

Tazuna scoffed. "Even if you did, I wouldn't."

Naruto made a face, but only grumbled under his breath.

After that, we walked, mostly in silence except for the occasional sound of birds and the rustling of wildlife in the trees beyond the road, rotating who took the lead. Occasionally Naruto would aim a squinting look at the back of Tazuna's head, which would result in Kakashi quietly grinding Naruto's hair into his head. After the third or so time, he stomped off to take point from Sakura.

Sakura gave Tazuna a considering look. "Tazuna-san, you're from Wave, aren't you?"

"And?" He took a swig from his bottle, giving her a challenging look.

Sakura turned her attention reluctantly to Kakashi instead. "Kakashi-sensei, does Wave have ninja too? I know they don't have a hidden village, but..."

He shook his head. "No, they don't. Most other countries do."

"You said that Konoha checks foreigners' passports earlier, right?" She waited for acknowledgement from him before she continued on. "Do we get that many people who come from other countries?"

Kakashi nodded, blasé. "Mission prices, distance, and reputation play a role in which hidden villages or even unaffiliated ninja clans clients will hire," he said, starting a bored explanation. "Konoha's reputation— and prices— mean we get plenty of clients who travel will travel into Fire, even if they have a hidden village or ninja clans nearer who might be more convenient." This had taken an unexpected turn.

Naruto twisted back to look. "Wouldn't it be easier to go to whoever's closest?" he asked, confused.

"Sometimes, but economic factors play a role, especially for merchants." Kakashi shrugged. "The various daimyo usually feel obligated to hire shinobi who live within their country's borders, but they're generally the exception, not the rule."

"What do you mean by economic factors?"

"The things that impact how people buy and sell things," Kakashi explained. "All businesses need to make a certain amount of money in the long term to survive, because the people who run them need to be able to eat and have somewhere to sleep too."

"Oh! Like how Ichiraku's costs more than instant ramen, cuz they have to make it there and pay for everything?"

"Sure," Kakashi said, "Like that." I felt like I could almost hear a piece of his already shriveled soul crack off at the comparison. "How things are priced are more complicated than that, but basically. Let's use the hidden village system as an example. Because Konoha is as large as it is, we can afford to send more ninja on missions, and charge less than other villages. While we aren't charging as much as we could, the amount of clients we get in return make up for it."

Naruto squinted, clearly thinking. "If we're getting all these missions, doesn't that make other people angry at us?"

"That's why alliances are important," Kakashi said. "Besides for other things. When war happens, trade slows down or sometimes stops entirely, but with an alliance or at least neutrality, it means we can usually guarantee some safety within those shared borders. Otherwise, merchants will decide it's too risky to take goods to and from our villages entirely."

"So... If we drop our prices too low and end up taking another village's missions from civilians to the point where they get desperate... they could get angry at us for being successful, but if we don't take enough missions, it's bad for us too, and if we end up at war... the civilians stop hiring anyone and the merchants stop selling things?" Sakura looked confused. To be fair to her, this wasn't exactly basic material. It wasn't like it was something most people really knew, even as adults. I had ended up working in financing in my last job before returning to school, and even most of the people I worked with barely understood it. "How does that help anyone?"

"It doesn't," Tazuna said severely, cutting in. "Trade is important for everyone, not just ninja. The bridge I'm working on will connect Wave to Fire and be important for my whole country."

"Hmm," was Kakashi's only response to that, giving the older man a lazy look. "I thought Water was known for its ships and sailors, being an island nation."

Tazuna, rather than answer, brought his bottle to his lips again and took a strong drink instead. Evading Kakashi's probing comment was probably the only thing he could do. 

With that, the conversation lapsed into silence again, with Sakura and Naruto— mostly Sakura, from what I could tell— still trying to untangle Kakashi's explanation from earlier.

We walked past a puddle.

This part was impossible to forget, from rewatches, and both because of it and despite myself, I found my fingers reaching for the holster on my thigh. Kakashi was still in his half-slouch, though he had looked at it, and the other three hadn't paid it any attention.

The only real warning was the sound of something suddenly moving through the air before chains wrapped around Kakashi, before everyone sounded off in surprise at that and the two ninja who had appeared.

Even though I was finding myself concerned at the fact that all of this was becoming increasingly detailed, it was still a dream, and I wasn't sure how I felt about how gory it looked when the two ripped 'Kakashi' apart with their chains, besides queasy. I could have done without my brain deciding to make it look so graphic and realistic.

"Kakashi-sensei!"

Sakura screamed, and the Demon Brothers landed behind Naruto.

My mind blanked on what was supposed to come next. _Sasuke_ had stepped in, but— 

Naruto had originally frozen up, hadn't he?

Irrationally, a streak of preemptive guilt ran through me at the idea of accidentally letting the main series character get killed off, even though I was sure the dreams were just me losing my sense of reality.

Their chains shot out in Naruto's direction.

I lunged forward in a leap, half-aware that at some point I had ended up with a kunai and shuriken in my off-hand.

Naruto _moved_ , twisting around in a hard skid that sent dust from the road into the air, kunai in both of his hands.

I felt like I was separated from everything as I threw the shuriken, watching it hit the middle of a link, and drive into one of the trunks of the trees, followed by the kunai driving it further in. 

The moment ended as soon as it had begun, and I was left very very aware that I was now very precariously standing with one foot on each brother's head. I wound up grabbing onto their gauntlets by sheer chance, which unbalanced the two. 

Naruto dove forward, running and then sliding below, slashing at the closest leg on each side. Unfortunately for him, they released the chain and burst free in unison. One of them struck out at Naruto, and he wasn't quite quick enough to block it, the metal claws striking his hand instead of his chest. They circled back towards Tazuna.

Sakura dashed directly in front of the old man, holding the kunai out in a defensive posture.

Before I could move, much less think of what to do next, Kakashi appeared in front of the two ninja. They ran right into the space he was now occupying, and were thrown off by their own inertia as he used it against them to clothesline them. 

Surprise— and relief— flooded onto Naruto, Sakura, and Tazuna's faces. 

"Good job, everyone," Kakashi said, as though he was entirely unaware he had two ninja flailing over his arms like particularly ungainly cats. "I'm sorry I didn't step in sooner and you got hurt, Naruto." A shift of his arms, and he smashed their heads together, and they went still. 

It was different from what had happened in the show, and yet not. 

The shock didn't last for long. Sakura glared at the jounin. "You played dead?!" 

"Not right now, Sakura-chan," Kakashi said indulgently. He walked over to the closest tree; it was the one the chain was still connected to. "Priorities first. Their claws are poisoned. Naruto, don't move around too much. Stay still. We'll need to open the wound up and drain the poisoned blood."

"Ah! Those were poisoned?" Naruto looked down in alarm at the oozing cuts on his hand. 

"Tazuna-san… We need to talk." Kakashi dropped them down by the tree, before reaching over his back and pulling out a coil of rope from a side pocket, which he started to loop around the tree. Soon, the two fended off attackers were tied down. 

Looking over at him, Tazuna appeared visibly apprehensive.

Kakashi nudged their legs apart with the actual toes of one foot— a clear downside to the toeless ninja sandals— to look at the injuries Naruto had dealt, before deciding they could be left as is. "These are chuunin from Kirigakure," he finally said, speaking. Kakashi could have easily been talking about the weather from his tone. "Ninja from Mist are known for their tenacity." He eyed Naruto, who had his mouth open to begin to say something. "They keep fighting no matter what," he clarified. 

One of them glared at him. "How did you know we were there?"

  
"The rain puddle." Kakashi said.

"Oh!" Sakura exclaimed. "Because it hasn't rained lately, there shouldn't have been a puddle, right?" 

"That's right," Kakashi told her. 

"Wait, if you knew, couldn't you have just stopped them?" Naruto asked. He looked at Kakashi, and then at his bloody hand. 

"Not without confirming something," Kakashi answered, cryptically. 

Sakura gave him an annoyed look. "Which is…"

"Their actual target," Kakashi finally explained. "Whether they were after us— as Leaf ninja— or our client." 

I looked in Tazuna's direction. He was looking far less anxious than I would have thought; Kakashi was going for a strong lead-up, after all.

"We didn't hear there were shinobi after you," Kakashi continued on, casually. "Your mission request explicitly states robbers and highwaymen. So, I— and whoever was determining the mission rank— would assume gangs, at the very worst, which are still C-rank mission items." It occurred to me that Kakashi was actually trying to _teach_ with these explanations he was giving. "Opposing shinobi being involved would not just make it a B-rank, but dramatically increase the price. We can't protect you properly when we don't have all of the information."

The older man looked contrite, but didn't say anything in response. The main difference was that he wasn't meeting Kakashi's visible eye anymore. 

"Sensei, are we going to head back to the village?" Sakura asked. She looked unsure of her question even as she asked it. "Naruto's going to need to see an iryo-nin for his hand, won't he? We're already a few hours away from the village, won't it get worse?"

Naruto's eyes widened, and he stared at his injured hand, clamping his uninjured one around his wrist protectively. "I hope not! They won't cut it off or anything, would they? I just started my career as a ninja! I can't lose a whole hand!" Losing a whole arm hadn't exactly slowed him or Sasuke down that much by the series end, from what I had heard— I had only seen clips of it, when it finally ended. This wasn't even his dominant one. 

"Hmm…" Kakashi gazed at the three of us. He actually looked like he was thinking for once. 

I suddenly remembered what I had packed. "Wait," I spoke up, finally. "I brought a medical kit." 

Kakashi directed his full attention on me. "Did you?" 

I nodded, pulling my pack off, setting it down on the ground in front of me. I opened it up, dug in, and offered Kakashi the medical kit. Kakashi, to my consternation, patted my head when he walked over and took it from me. 

"I'm not a dog," I told him. 

"Dogs, children," Kakashi said, vaguely, as he walked over to Naruto, opening the pack up and beginning to pull things out. "Sakura, Sasuke, come over here." 

Sakura exchanged a look with me, but we walked over. Naruto eyed Kakashi warily. 

"Ehehe, it'll be an antidote or something like that, right?" the blond asked.

"You're still conscious, so we'll just drain it," Kakashi answered. "Sakura, here." He dropped a long rubber cord into her hand. "Tie this around Naruto's bicep; you should know how to do a tourniquet from the academy. It'll help prevent the poison from travelling any further and will limit blood loss." Without any warning, he dropped a sealed off paper bag that was long and thin into my hands. It was light, but there was something in it. I opened it up out of curiosity. Inside was a scalpel. I guess that made sense, to have an actually sterile option instead inside of a kit. "And you'll make the incision, Sasuke." This was such a bad idea I was actually speechless. 

It took about a second for what Kakashi was saying to fully sink in for the others. 

"Wait, _what_ !?" Sakura and Naruto howled, not quite in unison. Sakura was already in the middle of tying the tourniquet off.  
  
"You're going to make them do it!?" Naruto stared at Kakashi in horror. 

"I did say 'we', didn't I?" Kakashi asked, rhetorically. 

"No way! Gimme that!" Before I could say anything, Naruto had stolen the scalpel and had sliced across the top of his injured hand. Soon, blood welled out of it. 

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted in shock. 

"Well. I can't say that… won't work, but you didn't need to make that big of a cut," Kakashi said, awkwardly, as though only now realizing it probably wasn't the greatest idea in the world to tell two twelve-year olds to perform field surgery on another when it wasn't actually necessary at all. "I think… I'll just take that from you, before you have any other ideas." The paper cover still in my hand and the slightly bloody scalpel in Naruto's quickly disappeared into Kakashi's hand, and then both were gone without a trace. 

Naruto looked down at his bleeding hand, then at Kakashi. "Wait. You mean I didn't have to do that?!"

"Not really, no," Kakashi told him. "We only needed a _small_ hole to drain from. Not a long slice like that. Then again, it was a scalpel. They aren't really stabbing implements," he said, thoughtfully. "That said, while we do have to work with what we have, doing it with something sterile and sharp is the best option if there's no one with medic training. You could die from sepsis if you use your field weapons for something like this and they aren't treated, and that's not a pleasant way to go." I found myself feeling concerned for Kakashi, in spite of myself. That was a hell of a tangent. 

Naruto and Sakura were looking at him with something akin to horror. "If Sasuke hadn't brought that medical kit—" Sakura started. Oh, this was going to become ugly. 

I interrupted Sakura. "I think," I started slowly, looking at Kakashi, "you need to stop talking."

"Fine, fine," Kakashi said, dismissively, popping out a wrap of bandage from the kit as he kneeled, taking Naruto's hand, and, somewhat questionably, tilted Naruto's hand to let the blood run off. "I'll just wrap… this..." Kakashi trailed off, staring at the cut. It was, slowly but surely, visibly joining back together in front of our eyes. 

"Uh.. I'm going to be okay, right?" Naruto asked, not sure how to take Kakashi's reaction. I wasn't sure if it was because he was already used to healing this fast— and wasn't aware it wasn't normal— or if he hadn't noticed at all with being preoccupied from Kakashi accidentally terrifying him. "Right?"

"You'll be fine," Kakashi firmly said, and he quickly finished wrapping Naruto's hand up. He tossed the now slightly depleted kit back to me.

Sakura was still glaring at the jounin. I wasn't sure she had even noticed Naruto's abnormally fast healing, considering how annoyed she was by Kakashi's conduct. 

Kakashi didn't seem to notice, but he met my eyes with his visible one before glancing back at Naruto's hand, meaningfully. I had no idea what he was trying to convey. Even dreaming— and I suddenly realized with a shock that for a while I had forgotten that entirely— with a version of him in front of me, Kakashi was impossible to read. Was it supposed to be a warning about what I saw? To see if I had noticed? I shrugged back at him.

He seemed to be satisfied— possibly even pleased— by whatever the hell that exchange was supposed to be, and set his hands on mine and Naruto's heads to leverage back into a standing position. It was completely unnecessary, which probably was why he did it. 

"Agh! Hey!" Naruto swatted at Kakashi's arms ineffectively. "You're really weird, you know that, sensei?"

"Am I? I had no idea." Kakashi shrugged, back to deflecting everything again, but the sharpness that had shown when he took out the Mist-nin had returned. "Now… Do we continue on the mission or not?" he asked, looking at us, intently. "We don't know what's ahead of us, and it will likely become only more difficult from here. It won't reflect badly on you as ninja if we return to Konoha, especially with this being your first mission out of the village, and one that's turned out to be far beyond the parameters we were informed of." 

"We won't always get to go back though, will we?" Sakura asked. Her question was so simple, but so serious, contrasting against the innocent expression she had focused on Kakashi.

What little of his face was visible looked tangled in how to answer that. "...No, you won't."

Naruto huffed out a breath, visibly steeling himself. "No way we're going back! You just said it yourself, we can't always cut and run! It might be okay this time, but it won't be later! I refuse to ever give up!"

"I don't want to head back either," Sakura said, decisively.

All eyes fell on me. 

"Well, Sasuke?" Kakashi asked.

 _This wasn't real_ , I reminded myself. "We keep going."

"Well, it looks like we have a consensus." Kakashi looked over at Tazuna. "We're still accompanying you to Wave." 

* * *

When I woke up, I rolled over and stayed that way, unmoving for long enough that I could see the light from the window track against the opposite wall. Eventually, I left the bed, but only long enough to grab the half-empty bottle of vodka from the freezer.


	5. It Comes and Goes Like Waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wave is just a strong ripple. They crash hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took much longer than expected. Alas, 2020 finally got its licks in. Again, thank you to everyone who leaves such lovely comments, I love reading them and responding to them (especially since it's so much easier here on AO3)! Much thanks to the wonderful Tavina and effervescent Zingenmir for beta-reading.

The fact that my head had very suddenly stopped throbbing was what made me realize it was this bullshit again. The fact I was standing on a foggy shoreline, with the rest of— no, _with—_ Team Seven and Tazuna was a distant second.

I could vaguely make out that there was a smattering of buildings up past the beach. Out on the water there were small boats with nets cast out over their sides, barely visible, and there were some here on the sand, away from the tide. Some were ramshackle, others carefully taken care of, but all of them were on the old side, as far as I could tell. The overwhelming scent of fish— fresh, slightly old, and rotten— hung in the air. This was some sort of fishing village, then.

I wasn't sure I was willing to miraculously not feel the hangover if this was the result. I wasn't even sure how that would work, anyways. The smell was nearly bad enough to make taking the hangover worth it entirely on its own.

At least I wasn't the only one suffering from the odor. Sakura looked slightly green, and looking at Kakashi, I suspected he was actually breathing through his mouth instead, not that it was easy to tell. Naruto seemed entirely unaffected, which was a mild kind of horrifying on its own. Tazuna didn't seem to have a problem with it, but Wave's status as an island nation probably played into that.

"Your friend _will_ be taking us across today?" Kakashi asked.

"Yesterday was too clear, but this is the right sort of weather," Tazuna answered.

"For what? Getting lost?" Naruto mimed looking around. "I thought this sorta weather was supposed to be dangerous? You can't see anything!"

"That's the point," Tazuna said, staring at the blond.

Sakura gave Tazuna a concerned look. Between Kakashi and now this, she was probably losing whatever faith she might have ever had in the belief adults were responsible. She'd probably be better off without it.

Eventually, a small boat emerged from the low fog, with only one figure visible in it. Tazuna looked tense, until it got closer and he was able to identify the man sitting at its rear, who waved at him. To my surprise, he was steering the boat towards the shore. At the absolute last moment, he cut the engine and tilted the propeller up out of the water, before he hopped out and pushed the boat further out of the water.

"Sorry about the wait, the engine was acting up," he said to Tazuna, before giving us a look over. Under his sugegasa, his narrow face looked tired. "These are the ninja you hired?" He sounded a bit dubious, which made sense considering that Kakashi was the only obvious adult, the other two were twelve, and my unconscious had decided that for this slow descent into insanity it only made sense for me to also look like a twelve year old.

"They're able to handle it," Tazuna said, which was a far cry from what I remembered from the series at this point.

"If you say so." He scratched the back of his head, and adjusted the hat. "I'm Kaji," he said, introducing himself. He didn't seem to be in the mood for making this longer than it needed to be, since he immediately followed it up with: "Get in, and I'll launch."

Sakura's eyebrows furrowed together for a moment at stepping into the water— for good reason, given the occasional dead fish floating on the surf and onto the sand— but to my surprise, she was the first one to get into the boat, beating Kakashi. When he tried to pat her on the head in praise, she smacked his hand away.

I joined them next, and Tazuna followed after me.

Naruto was still on the shore, giving the water an askance look. I suddenly realized that at no point had he ever stood on any of the beach that was wet from the waves coming in.

"Naruto, hurry up!" Sakura shouted, as she unslung her backpack. She looked at Kakashi. "I thought the Uzumaki were originally from Whirlpool? Wasn't it an island?" She turned her attention back on Naruto. "Your ancestors lived on the ocean! Hurry up!"

Kakashi tried to disguise what was a painfully obvious wince as a smile. It seemed to have worked on Sakura, because she didn't seem to catch it. "Ah, yes, but you have to remember, Naruto was born in Konoha and is an orphan…"

Sakura didn't have any time for Kakashi's logic. She just glared at Naruto more. "Just get in the boat already!"

Naruto looked horrified. "But Sakura! FISH _POOP_ IN THAT WATER! And there's a dead one right there!" There was indeed a dead fish floating on the water very close to the boat. Was this really what he had been thinking the whole time?

Kaji sighed.

Kakashi looked between the two genin, got out of the boat, walked over to where Naruto was standing, and, against all protests, tucked him into an under arm carry, before depositing Naruto in the front and getting back into the boat.

With a firm shove, the boat glided into deeper waters, and in a practiced move the man gracefully pulled himself over the side and on board, only the hem of his shorts damp from the water. He pushed off further with his oar, before lowering the propeller again and starting the engine.

"You're an Uzumaki? I thought they were supposed to have red hair," Kaji commented, once he settled into a comfortable position.

"Red hair?" Naruto screwed his eyes upwards and tugged on a hank of hair, as though he could actually get a look at it.

"You like to wear _orange_. You'd look awful with red hair," I pointed out. I set my— Sasuke's?— bag down next to me.

" _You'd_ look awful with red hair!" he shot back. It didn't even make sense as far as retorts went, but I couldn't tell if that was due to the change in dynamics or because he was busy thinking about something else. "I wonder if one of my parents had red hair," Naruto actually said out loud while he dropped his backpack onto the deck. Something else, then. He and Sakura were too busy looking out at the mist-covered ocean to see the fleeting look of wished-for death cross what was visible of Kakashi's face.

He let the moment pass, but eventually he must have recovered, because he turned his attention back to the client. "Tazuna-san, you mentioned your bridge is supposed to help Wave get out from under Gato's power. How long do you think it will be until it's complete?"

"If we can keep working on it without interruption, about a month, maybe a month and a half if the weather works against us," Tazuna answered. "Most of the span leading from Fire is finished. It starts from that village we waited at."

Sakura turned, looking surprised. "It was that close? We didn't even see it!"

"That's because of the fog," Kakashi said, trying to sound lazy. "Water might be known for having constant cover year round, but Fire's eastern coast is heavily blanketed from late spring through the summer because of warm air drifting over the ocean. Starting it from our side wouldn't just help avoid the need to ship in resources, but would have ended up useful in evading Gato's attention until now. His company doesn't have any stakes in Fire yet." He fixed his eye on Tazuna.

"I avoided starting it on the Wave side until I had no choice," he answered. "While it wasn't intended, it worked out when Gato finally took over all of the ports and shipping companies."

Kaji spoke up. "Tazuna-san asked the village elders here on the shore of Fire for permission to use their village as the connection to Wave. They agreed. Between the third shinobi war and Uzushio getting destroyed, it's been slowly dying." He didn't sound grim so much as resigned. "There hasn't been enough trade to sustain it, so people keep leaving. You might be able to live off of fish alone, but if you can't sell anything you can't exactly pay taxes or replace things that wear out if you can't make them yourself. Since construction started, it's kept more people employed from there since before I can remember. If the bridge works out, it won't just help Wave, but them too."

"Couldn't they just do different things besides just fish?" Sakura asked. "Wouldn't that work?"

He shook his head. "It isn't that easy. A village _grows_ into having all of those different things because there's demand in the first place. You can't just take a man and tell him he's a full time carpenter now, when there's nothing to build."

"Oh," she went, looking very thoughtful. "I guess that makes sense."

"As shinobi, we're tools," Kakashi told her. "We might be able to be the solution to some problems, but we can't fix everything in this world. It would be like trying to use a kunai to build a house." He was right that you couldn't throw ninja at every problem and expect it to be solved— military force rarely made anything better, after all— but a kunai wouldn't be the absolute worst option, would it? I barely resisted the urge to say something.

Unexpectedly, Kakashi met my eyes. "I'm sure you're trying to figure out how to prove my analogy wrong but please don't," he said, with what I could only call badly faked amusement. His eye closed, wrinkled into a forced smile. "The last time you did it sent us in a circular argument."

"I got a headache from that one," Sakura grumbled. "I didn't know Naruto could argue for that long, and he didn't even know what he was arguing about."

I simmered in this unexpected callout from my subconscious instead of responding to either of them.

For some time, impossible to tell without being able to track the sun or a watch, the only sounds were the motor running and the occasional choppy wave slapping against the boat's hull. It was interrupted by the boat suddenly rocking side to side, a loud ' _PLUNK'_ , and then splashing.

"Ah!"

While we were distracted, Naruto had somehow gone over the side.

Sakura gasped. "Naruto!"

Kakashi sighed, and, casually hooking his legs under the bench he was seated on, leaned over the side and fished Naruto out one-handed. He dropped the now-soaked blond into the middle of the boat.

Naruto sputtered and gagged, doing his best to get the seawater out of his mouth before he blew his nose. "I hate the ocean!" As if to punctuate this statement, when he unzipped his now sodden jacket, some slimy looking kelp and a small silvery fish dropped to the deck. He stared at it in shock before he made a horrified sound of disgust.

Kaji looked at Naruto and then gave Kakashi an unsure look. "Are you sure he's an Uzumaki?" Trying to combine his understanding of what the Uzumaki had a reputation for and where they used to live with the blond boy who was trying to help the fish out of the boat without touching it in any way was probably a difficult mental exercise.

It looked like that vague micro-expression I had categorized as 'I wish for death' was going to become a regular part of Kakashi's repertoire, because he was wearing it again. "Fairly sure, yes."

It occurred to me that Minato's name was also ocean themed. Naruto really wasn't living up to either legacy there, where the ocean was concerned, it seemed. Then again, it wasn't like he had any experience with it until just now. Rivers were entirely different.

Sakura's patience for Naruto's fishy hangup looked ready to end. "Naruto! Stop torturing the poor fish!" There it was. She shoved him away, before picking up the desperately flopping fish and dropping it into the water. It quickly disappeared out of view.

Naruto looked at her in horror. "Sakura, you have _fish hands now_."

"It's just a fish! Grow up already!"

"But the fish! And the water!" I had absolutely no idea what Naruto was trying to get across.

I rubbed the back of my head. "Fish do have some pretty nasty germs that you wouldn't want to get in any cuts…"

"What? Nooooo! SENSEI!" Sakura's earlier confidence immediately melted away.

Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Kakashi probably wanted to throw me off the boat now. On the plus side, I didn't hate myself so much that getting thrown into a dream ocean should be that bad. At least I didn't think I did.

Regardless, we probably weren't making anything approaching a good impression on the sailor, between Naruto's random and hopefully short-lived brush with thalassophobia and Sakura's sudden squeamishness over gross fish germs. Admittedly, the last one was entirely my fault, but still.

Kakashi's visible eye closed for a long, pained-looking moment, before he finally opened it. "Sakura, if you're concerned about fish germs, run your hands through the water over the side without falling in. Naruto, there is nothing in the water that you should be afraid of. Sasuke, please stop talking."

Considering how little I actually said, that was unfair, but I was actually surprised he tried. We must really have had him near the breaking point. I didn't even know Kakashi was capable of being competent with pre-teens, but apparently he could be if he was desperate enough.

Sakura made a face at him, but ultimately obeyed.

Naruto, on the other hand, only gave Kakashi a suspicious look. "How do you know? There could be sea monsters or something!" The closest thing to a sea monster was sealed in his stomach right now and I was pretty sure the kyuubi had no interest in large bodies of water. At least, as far as thought exercises went, I would assume so.

"There is absolutely nothing out here," Kakashi said, in a long-suffering tone.

Eventually the conversation lapsed into a peaceful quiet, the only sound coming from the motor, until Naruto spoke up again.

"Uh… should I be feeling itchy?" There was a nervous edge to Naruto's question, straining his attempt at sounding light.

I turned to look at him: even in the relatively low light from the all of the mist, there was an almost shimmery glint to Naruto. His unexpected trip into the ocean meant that as he slowly dried off, the salt was remaining stuck to his skin and his clothes. Combined with the mist, it meant he was slowly becoming not just itchy, but sticky as well. That was probably the worst combination.

Before I could say anything, Kakashi shot a warning glance at me.

"Ma, Naruto, go sit in the front," he said, waving his fingers forward.

"Why?"  
  
"Just do it."

I exchanged a look with Sakura, and shifted to move back. She gave me a confused look, but stayed where she was.

Naruto moved to the front of the boat, and then turned around. "Okay, now what—ggggk!" Before he could finish what he had to say, Kakashi had swamped him with a slow moving geyser of presumably fresh water, ignoring the shouts of surprise from the other adults. As far as I could tell, he was managing to make sure as little of the water as possible would end up in the boat, too. What an abuse of a jutsu.

"Is that better?" Kakashi sounded happier at least.

Naruto made a face at him, dripping onto the deck. "How's soaking me with more water gonna help!?"

"Ninja…" Kaji said quietly, shaking his head.

"You were feeling like that because of all the salt that was covering you," I answered, ignoring Kakashi. "Even with all this fog you were still drying off."

Naruto blinked. "Salt?" And then, as if on automatic, he raised his arm up and licked his wrist before he processed what he just did and what he had been thinking the whole time about the ocean. He immediately gagged and tried to desperately scrub at his tongue before he realized he was just exacerbating it all. I guess this was just inevitable from Naruto trying to think more.

This was apparently more than enough for Sakura to decide to no longer deal with any of us, since she turned her attention to the civilians. "Kaji-san, how long is it until we reach Wave?" she politely asked.

"We're almost there," the man answered.

"Really?" Sakura sounded surprised. "How can you tell?" I was impressed. The fog had only thickened as we got further away from shore.

He showed her a compass, before putting it away and placing his free hand on the fuel tank. "By going at a constant speed the way we are, and making sure we're staying on a straight course, it's easy. I know how much fuel the engine uses in these conditions, so I just have to keep an eye on the gauge if I want to keep track of time."

I guess that was one way to do it.

"We're almost close enough that I'll have to turn the motor off."

This comment attracted Naruto's attention. "Why's that?"

"Between the sound from the motor and the wakes we're leaving, it would make it easy for Gato's men to find us if they're out here," Kaji answered, seriously. "We need to be quiet."

Naruto cautiously moved to the back of the boat to look at the trail we were leaving behind us. "Huh," he went. "Those really are big, if you can find them. Do they last a long time?"

"Long enough to follow if you see them. I'm taking you all across as a favor. I have no interest in becoming another missing sailor after a 'friendly' visit from his thugs," Kaji said bluntly. "There's enough of those, these days." If that was the incentive to stay low, it said a lot that he was willing to take Tazuna and us across.

Naruto's eyes widened, before his expression turned serious and he balled his fists up. "We're not going to let that happen!"

"Good luck there." Kaji said it without any rancor to his voice, but it was clear he didn't believe Naruto at all.

Kakashi reached over, and gripped Naruto's head, pulling the boy back towards the bow. "Try not to make so many impossible promises, hm?" he murmured. It was quiet enough that I could barely hear it from where I was sitting, and Sakura looked like she had picked it up as well. Neither civilian— when had I started thinking of them like that?— showed any sign they had heard it.

Kaji finally cut the engine, and switched to his oar.

The new silence in the fog was eerie. I refused to think about it. While things were staying relatively true to the series, I had absolutely no interest in seeing if thinking too hard would end up with a surprise shift from weird anime dreams to horror.

Naruto had learned his lesson about not leaning too far over by now, and instead was keeping his center of balance firmly inside the boat even as he tried to peer ahead. The only thing he would find staring like that was going to be eye strain. The fog was just too thick to make anything out until it was too close. If anything, it was thicker than when we had left Fire's shore, in spite of the fact we were supposed to be nearing land.

It seemed to have put Kakashi on alert. "Get your bags ready," he told us, quietly but firmly. It wasn't a suggestion, but an order.

Naruto turned around and looked as though for a moment he was going to protest, but after looking at everyone and seeing that Sakura and I were doing what Kakashi said, visibly swallowed and pulled his bag's straps back onto his shoulders.

Sakura saw it first. "Whoa."

The bridge had very suddenly come into sight— or to be more accurate, its concrete piles. We weren't that far from it at all, probably twenty, maybe thirty feet. The bridge itself loomed high enough that its supports faded into the fog, its actual structure barely visible as a vague form above in the white-grey fog.

"I had no idea bridges could _get_ that big," Naruto said, his voice filled with amazement.

I did, but it was strange to come to the realization that such a normal bridge to me absolutely wouldn't be to any of them. Even Kakashi was quietly looking up at it, and it probably wasn't due to his bridge-related trauma. At least, I hoped not.

"This will be my best achievement in life if I can complete it," Tazuna said. "My daughter and grandson will be able to have better futures because of it. If I don't, and Gato kills me, they'll mourn me, forever hating Konoha, and my grandson will probably not live to see adulthood." I guess he couldn't resist getting that jab of guilt inducing pressure to remind us of our job.

"I'm sure they'll be fine," Kakashi said, though he didn't sound like he was trying to be particularly reassuring.

Sakura made a face, but only after she made sure Tazuna couldn't see. It struck me that being a ninja with how it was in the series was mostly _customer service._ Just with added weapons.

"We're almost there," Kaji promised, after some time. "We'll be going further inland, where it isn't as open, just in case Gato's men are out here."

Land slowly came into view, hazy in the fog. Naruto leaned forward suddenly, far enough that all three of us tried to grab for him just to not have a repeat of his earlier splash. Kakashi bashed into me, and we ended up glaring at each other— insomuch that he _could_ glare with one eye— as Sakura hauled Naruto so far back by the straps of his backpack that he rolled back onto it, leaving him flailing for a moment before he sat upright again.

"Naruto!" I was impressed at how Sakura had managed to compress shouted frustration into a conversational volume. She was taking the warning about being quiet seriously. "Are you trying to go over the side again!?"

He rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. "Eheh, no, not really. Sorry! Thanks for the save, Sakura." Naruto beamed at her.

"Eugh." Sakura rolled her eyes at him and huffed, but eventually smiled back. "Think next time, okay?" This was compounded by her looking at me and Kakashi still eying the other and then muttering something indistinct under her breath that sounded rather like ' _Boys'._

That was interesting.

Land edged into view and soon, to accompany it, the fainter shape and color of trees took form in the fog, the line between land and sea broken by a series of smaller arched bridges that ran along the shore.

"Yay," said Naruto, quietly.

I snorted. Apparently he could make it clear he was happy about things without being at a dull roar.

He twisted back at me to make a face. "Hey! Don't laugh!"

I shrugged.

"Keep it down," Kakashi reminded us. At some point he had pulled his book out, in spite of being in front of clients.

Naruto eyed Kakashi, stuck his tongue out at me, and turned back to watch as we approached.

Kaji oared the boat towards the bridges. "We've been lucky so far, but we'll take the route with vegetation just in case."

"Are there really other routes?" Sakura wondered.

"This side of Wave is covered with mangroves," Tazuna said, "but they aren't everywhere. It's easy to get lost in them if you aren't good with direction or familiar with the area. Gato's tried to clear some of them out, but he's found out the hard way why you shouldn't do that."

"Why's that?"

"Mangroves prevent erosion," Kakashi boredly answered. I wondered if I should point out that he hadn't been flipping pages. "I imagine if he's built anything in cleared out areas he's found the foundation washing out from under him."

"He's wasted plenty of money and resources on buildings that aren't going to last another year." Tazuna sounded affronted, but then again, he did build things. I didn't know anyone from the engineering college who would be that happy either at their work washing away so quickly.

"Ma, he really is rich, isn't he?"

"If he's so rich, why is he still making so much money? How're people not just taking it from him?" Naruto asked.

"That's called taxation," I said— at the same time as Kakashi. We stared at each other.

Sakura ignored the two of us. "Remember? If he's doing all this criminal stuff like Tazuna-san says, he's probably making a lot of money illegally, too."

I absolutely did not remember that. I could only assume that it had to do with Tazuna owning up and that it probably went the same way as the story. Hopefully. So much about these dreams was just stupid. Especially the part where I didn't even seem to get to have original jokes without them being given to Kakashi.

"Oh, yeah," Naruto said, obviously lying.

Sakura rolled her eyes.

We approached the bridge, and entered one of the tunnels. As we emerged from the other side, Naruto spoke up. "Wow."

I could see why. The village on the other side stretched out ahead, split up by clusters of mangrove trees. Every building in sight was built on the water, their connected decks several feet above the surface. I wondered if it would be the poverty or weather that contributed to their worn looks more. Some of the buildings looked rougher than others.

We went past the initial groups of buildings, and past the mangroves, until we reached more buildings that bordered actual land, somewhat secluded from the rest.

Probably to Naruto's relief, we stopped at an actual dock. "This is where I leave you. Good luck," Kaji said. He glanced at Naruto, who had immediately flung himself onto the wooden dock and was doing a small dance of happiness to himself at not being on a boat anymore, before looking at Kakashi. "And... maybe teach the kid how to sail? If you can? It's sad to lose your heritage."

Well, he wasn't wrong.

Kakashi, who was just about to step up, slumped over. Sakura shoved at him to get off the boat. The jounin rolled with it, as though the momentum from Sakura wouldn't have thrown anyone else off.

"Thank you," Tazuna told the sailor, once he was on the pier. It was probably the most sincere he had been the whole time.

Kaji gave a short wave, restarted the engine, and motored off.

"Now! Get me home safely."

I guess things really were about to kick off, weren't they?

Kakashi made bored agreements to placate him as Sakura and I watched Naruto speed off ahead of us to finally be on real ground again.

"Ugh. Naruto! Slow down!" Sakura called. "You don't have to take point all the time!"

"But it's fun!" Naruto turned around and shouted back.

"You're not a very good point if you're looking at us!" she yelled at him.

Judging from his expression, he had forgotten that. He immediately turned around, so fast it was accidentally a spin. He at least was facing the right direction when he stopped.

Naruto was taking it seriously, but not overly so. At least, I thought so. I don't think he was seeing this as some weird competition to prove his worth, at any rate, though eventually we closed the distance between us and him.

Sakura, if anything, seemed to be more nervous.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She immediately blushed. I regretted asking. "Oh!" she said, only turning more pink. "I was just thinking..." Sakura drifted off, looking the other direction. "It's nothing important."

I sighed. "Drop the false modesty. You shouldn't pretend it isn't." It was annoying enough to see in freshmen girls who were still trying to cultivate some kind of persona before they realized it had an impact on their GPA. I didn't want to suffer through more of it while asleep. "What are you thinking?"

Sakura blinked in surprise. "Oh. Uh." She obviously hadn't expected to actually have to put her thoughts into words. "It's just everything about this mission. If Gato's hiring ninja too, it means this is going to be more dangerous, isn't it? But at the same time, since Tazuna-san says this bridge wouldn't be just good for Wave, but Water and Fire too, and probably other countries, why would they work for him? Wouldn't that go against their interests, too?"

I felt a hand grip into my hair and head, and saw its match anchor onto Sakura's head. "Not all ninja are loyal to hidden villages or their countries of origin," Kakashi said, his voice coming from behind and above us. "Some are actually very short-sighted and only care about money. I approve of you trying to think over this, by the way. It's important to understand the underlying situation for more complicated missions."

Sakura tried to elbow him in the gut, but he let go and stepped back out of reach before she could even wing his flak jacket. She huffed, unhappy. "Well, wouldn't it be good for them, too, if it'd make things cheaper?"

"Not everyone sees prosperity as a goal," Kakashi answered, angling to be in step next to Sakura. "For Konoha, we see it as a reward and as something that helps the village as a whole, much like Fire does. Other hidden villages aren't so lucky."

I wasn't sure whether to ignore him for being so nosy and clearly trying to fish for getting us to ask what he meant, or just to indulge him and ask, which would only reward this behavior. Either way, it was weird to think of Kakashi as the sort of person who used providing random relevant information as a social interaction. Most desperate 'gifted' kids outgrew it.

Sakura had no such compunctions. At least not anymore. "Get to the point, sensei," she demanded.

"No patience?" he asked.

"No," she said, glaring up at him.

He feigned a put-upon sigh. "Some villages rely on things like fear and desperation to keep their ninja in line. Those are the currencies of despotism."

There was no way he came up with a phrase that sounded _that_ good on his own. I squinted at him. "Did you get that from your _book?"_

Kakashi ignored me; the only sign he had heard me at all was that his Icha Icha novel suddenly disappeared from view. "Villages like that only foment—" Had he forgotten he was talking to children? Probably. "— rebellion and tend to produce missing-nin in larger numbers. Like Kiri. The Demon Brothers are a product of that kind of system. They're revolutionaries. Missing-nin like that tend to work in clusters. Ideologues tend to put everyone else on edge."

"Huh," Sakura went. Her brows furrowed together. She was clearly putting a lot of thought into what he had said. I wondered how much of it she actually understood.

Naruto had wandered further ahead again, presumably from not wanting to waste any of his brain power on this conversation. I couldn't blame him; it probably would have been a slog for him to try. Even Sakura was visibly trying to put it together in a way she could understand, and she was an intelligent actual twelve— no, _thirteen_ , something in the back of my head corrected me— year old.

In front of us, Naruto's body language shifted into something more alert; how much of it was actually conscious I didn't know, but from one moment he had gone from half-playfully ambling with his hands shoved into his pockets, to staring into the vegetation off the side of the road, to suddenly pulling a shuriken out and throwing it.

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted, when she realized what he had done. "What gives!?"

The older man looked stressed. "You're supposed to protect me! Not give me a heart attack!"

"There was something there!" he insisted.

Kakashi was already walking into the brush, not bothering with any of them. Not wanting to bother listening to the stress-induced sniping, I followed him.

This part had stayed the same. A white-furred rabbit had collapsed beneath the shuriken Naruto had thrown, shaking from fear.

Sakura and Naruto must have trailed after us, because I heard a noise of surprise from Sakura, shortly followed by Naruto scooping the rabbit up to inspect it. Both of them looked horrified at the rabbit's near-death experience. It had always struck me weird in retrospect that in the series that they had been so affected by Naruto almost killing a rabbit, considering they were supposed to be ninja, but it was very different looking at a small, innocent and very cute-looking fluffy creature that was terrified out of its mind.

Kakashi was still looking out past the road while the rabbit kept their attention absorbed on it.

His countenance changed more suddenly than Naruto's had minutes before, eye focused and everything about his body language suddenly on sharp alert. "Get down!" he demanded.

We barely had time to process it. I tackled Tazuna over, trying and failing to remember how this had gone in the show, while Naruto and Sakura dropped flat on the road only a few feet away. From the angle I was at, I couldn't see Kakashi.

Something passed above our heads, whirling.

I stood up once I no longer heard it. The other two were still on the ground. Kakashi was already standing when I looked towards him, looking up at one of the trees.

Zabuza Momochi was already standing on top of the hilt of his sword, the blade embedded in the tree, looking back and down at us, the dramatic fuck. As cool as it looked, I found myself realizing that his entrance was extremely impractical on multiple levels. Then again, he wasn't the one toting children and a civilian around, so maybe he felt like he could afford to show off.

Kakashi's expression hadn't lost the complete alertness he had displayed just moments ago, but he was a quarter of the way into his normal slouch, thumbs looped into his pockets. Were they both trying to show off? Was that what jounin did? "Ah, the Hidden Mist's missing-nin Momochi Zabuza..." He swung an arm out and back towards us, warningly. "Get back, all of you."

I looked over at Naruto and Sakura instead. The two of them had their attention entirely on Zabuza, which was fair. Sakura was frowning to herself, and Naruto actually looked focused. Zabuza's entrance had been more dramatic like this than it was in illustrated or animated form, even if it was over the top to the point of being unrealistic. There really was a serious commitment to posing going on here, for someone who was supposed to be an assassin. I wondered what it said about me that my dreams weren't even trying to bother to 'correct' that part.

On the one hand, things were still mostly unfolding according to how the story had played out. On the other, changes were gradually accruing with each dream, to the point where each interaction was beginning to impact others. Naruto wasn't so quick to act on his impulses and was more actually sure of himself when he did. The differences in Naruto barely held a candle to Sakura, though. The mostly blind trust she had held in Kakashi and willingness to let her teammates be in charge apparently had never taken root in this dream version, because of the bell test going so off-track. She was much more willing to question things and ask to make her own decisions, instead of assuming that Kakashi actually knew best. At least I assumed that was the case, and not some kind of subconscious favoritism on my part. It made me curious about how it would continue to play out, if I kept having these dreams.

"'Sharingan'? What the hell is the 'sharingan'?" Naruto's voice interrupted my thoughts. At some point when I wasn't paying attention, Kakashi had pushed his hitai-ate up. Did I really zone out of a whole _dream_ conversation? Again? Apparently so.

I didn't particularly feel like volunteering to explain. Not only did I not want to— even in the privacy of a dream it felt embarrassing to admit to myself I hadn't forgotten what the Sharingan was, ever since the first time I had gotten my hands on the manga— I wasn't even that sure I was up to giving an explanation that wouldn't be too in depth.

Fortunately, it seemed Zabuza was more than willing to show off his knowledge. "Heh. Your brats don't know?" His head tilted, mockingly. "I suppose it doesn't matter much, when the Uchiha clan is all but extinct."

I tried to ignore the fact that both Sakura and Naruto had swung their heads quickly to stare at me. A part of me couldn't resist letting the thought bubble up that it would actually make this _harder_ if Zabuza thought there was a second Sharingan user involved. I did my best to squash it down.

"It's one of the three great doujutsu," Zabuza continued on, as though he hadn't noticed. He had turned to look down at Kakashi, still standing on the hilt of his sword. I seriously doubted that it had somehow passed him by, when he actually had a full view of all of us. "Immensely powerful, and it's supposed to be able to read and defeat all jutsu. Of course the scariest ability is the one he's known for best... isn't it, Copy-nin? The handbook I kept when I was part of Kiri's assassination squad had plenty of information on you. You were known for having copied over a thousand jutsu before I went rogue. How many must it be now?"

"More than enough to deal with you, I think," Kakashi answered. There was an almost deceptive sort of casualness to his tone of voice, in direct contrast to how he was standing.

"I think that's plenty of talk." Zabuza crouched.

"Wait!" Sakura shouted. "If you're a missing-nin from Kiri, why are you working for Gato?"

Naruto and I turned to stare at her. "Uh… Sakura… I dunno if right now's the time to be asking questions like that," he said, nervously. "Eheh."

Zabuza snorted. "What the fuck sort of question is that?" His attention turned towards Kakashi for a moment, one thin eyebrow visibly raised at the other jounin even from this distance, before refocusing his attention on Sakura. "I don't work under a village. I still need to eat and make money, too, little girl. Can't kill the Mizukage on an empty stomach or with an equally empty purse."

"That's not what I mean!" I was beginning to think that Sakura had lost it. "You work with the Demon Brothers too, don't you? And if you're all revolutionaries, why are you working for someone that's just going to make it harder for you?"

What. Naruto's eyes met mine. He looked completely confused.

"Ah... Sakura-chan..." Kakashi spoke up. There was a hint of strained lightness to his voice. "We aren't supposed to be encouraging _revolution_ against foreign governments... Not like this, anyways. Please do me a favor and forget that, Tazuna-san."

Behind me, I could hear the old man swallow.

Zabuza stood back up. "What makes you think this would make things harder for _me_? If this bridge of his gets built, it will end up sending more trade to and from Water."

"Yes, but…" Sakura hesitated for a moment, clearly trying to decide how to phrase what she wanted to say. "Kakashi-sensei said that in places like Kiri, they don't really care about regular money. That it's fear and desperation they use as their currency, that keeps their ninja under control. Wouldn't a bridge make it harder for that to work?" She was looking increasingly more confident as she spoke, standing a little taller than she had when she first tried to stop the fight. "The man who took us across said the bridge wouldn't just help Wave, but also the coastal village in Fire we left from. If Tazuna-san's bridge is going to improve that many people's lives, wouldn't it have an impact in Kiri, too? If it's so bad there, but they know it's better elsewhere and it's easier to leave, wouldn't they? A hidden village needs people for it to be a hidden _village_."

Judging from the way his shoulders were slouching more and more, Kakashi hadn't expected to be dragged into this that way.

No one spoke for some time, long enough that soon it wasn't only the breeze in the trees we heard, but the slow sound of birds resuming their activities, too. It was a bit specious.

Zabuza and his sword disappeared from the tree, and just as suddenly, we heard what could only be laughter before he dropped into a landing, right in front of Kakashi. I was vaguely aware of kunai suddenly being gripped between both my hands again, and Sakura and Naruto armed up as well, the three of us backing up to create a closer perimeter to Tazuna. It was only a half second later when Zabuza hadn't attacked that I realized that Kakashi hadn't bothered to move at all.

"You read that shit? _And_ bring it up to children?" He was still laughing. Apparently he had recognized Sakura's butchering of Kakashi's reference for what it was. This 'rich inner life' was starting to get seriously bullshit.

"You know, you just admitted to reading them too," Kakashi answered.

"Fuck." Zabuza stopped laughing.

Naruto edged up to my side. "Psst. Hey. Sasuke," he started. It was actually in a whisper range.

"Hm?"

"Do you know what just happened? Because I don't."

I seriously hoped he was talking about Sakura's intervention working. "I'm not really sure, but it just kept us out of a serious fight," I said back, quietly. "Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth."

"Huh? What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

Sakura looked at the two of us, her eyebrows crinkled together in a mix of confusion and concern, before she rolled her eyes. She ended up stomping off towards Kakashi and Zabuza, leaving the two of us to our own devices. Presumably to still guard Tazuna.

"Don't question it too hard," I explained, feeling just as confused as Naruto looked now.

Ahead, the two jounin were having, as far as I could tell, a surprisingly serious and civil conversation, considering that minutes ago they were more than ready to go at each other with the intent to kill to ensure their respective missions were accomplished. They had also stepped away to not be as easily overheard. At some point Kakashi had pushed his hitai-ate back down over his Sharingan.

I watched as Sakura approached them. The moment she was near, their attention turned towards her, and Kakashi patted her on the head again, tousling her hair. She actually tried to punch him this time. Zabuza's laugh was loud enough for us to hear from where we were when Kakashi casually side-stepped it. He reached over her head, grabbed the top handle of her gear bag, lifted it and her and turned her around, before giving her a light push to send her back.

Sakura stomped back towards us, visibly angry with both fists still clenched.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I can't believe him!" she started to vent. Sakura was looking visibly angrier with each passing second. Next to me, Naruto took a step backwards, and then another. "He said I don't need to know! And then—!" Sakura cut herself off, huffed, closed her eyes, and then breathed out. Eventually she opened them back up, smiling once again, like she hadn't come close to having a full rage meltdown. She turned towards Tazuna. "Tazuna-san, are you alright?"

Tazuna eyed her warily. "Uh, yes, thank you for asking."

A loud bird call cut through the air. I couldn't tell where it came from, or if it was even _supposed_ to come from somewhere. Naruto twisted around, trying to figure out its origin.

"Ah!" Naruto's eyes widened, looking behind Tazuna.

I turned to see what he was looking at.

Even with my angle of view blocked when Tazuna turned as well, I could already tell who it was supposed to be from my brief glance of dark hair, a bun holder, and a green haori. He was down on one knee, head partially lowered.

"You called for me, Zabuza-sama?" a soft voice enquired.

"There's a change of plans. We're breaking our contract with Gato. Instead, we're working with Leaf-nin for the time being."

"Hello, my name is Haku." Haku stood up, and approached us. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Naruto didn't just look elated, but had the same mushy expression he sometimes still directed towards Sakura when she wasn't paying attention. Again, it grated on me that comparison came unbidden.

Any decision I could make on whether or not to tell Naruto Haku was actually a boy dropped in priority as I felt my head pulse and everything faded away.

* * *

I opened my eyes and immediately regretted it. I had forgotten to close my blinds, and my poor, hungover head got a full dose of late morning sunlight smashing through my eyes. I crammed my pillow against my face until it stopped feeling like I was being stabbed in the face. "Fuuuuck." Everything still felt like it was swimming.

I fucked up.

I slowly scooted up in bed, before turning, and with my eyes still closed, grabbed for the rod attached to the blinds and rotated it until I could no longer see the bright light through my eyelids. I flopped back over, after that.

After a few minutes passed, I grappled for my phone, and squinted at its screen. Half-blurred, I could at least make out that I had no messages or missed calls, but I was still going to have to peel myself out of the bed for my afternoon class and a meeting with my advisor.

I dry-swallowed the painkillers I had set down on the nightstand, drained the glass of water next to it, and rolled out of bed to deal with the day's self-induced suffering.

I only tripped and nearly fell over once on my way to shower, and tried to not think too much as the bathroom filled with heavy mist.


	6. I Drank a River of Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreaming goes wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Title: "Kakashi and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Mission".
> 
> Many thanks to the ever lovely Tavina and the well-argued PoorCynic for betaing. 
> 
> While I'm not entirely sure I need to apply any updated tags or rating for the whole fic where content warning could be concerned, I do want to note that the latter half has the protagonist in a fairly unhealthy mindset and experiencing some dissociation.
> 
> Also! If you're writing as well, come write with me! https://discord.gg/qhZRKqH I have a sprint writing bot and love having 'company' to write along with. :)

I found myself very suddenly falling from a height, the wide trunk of a tree speeding upwards in front of me.

I landed with a heavy thump on the ground that knocked the breath out of me. _What the fuck, that actually hurt_.

"Sasuke! Are you alright?" Sakura's voice called out from somewhere above. She sounded concerned.

I was too stunned and out of breath to say anything. I half-lifted an arm weakly before I decided it was too much effort and let it fall back down.

Kakashi's face loomed into view, his mask obstructed by his book. He nudged me with the side of his foot, before apparently deciding everything was fine. "You know, it helps to break your fall if you're going to suddenly stop. Something to take into consideration for next time."

"Great advice," I managed to say.

"I'm glad you think so." There was a loud thump not too far away, and the sound of Naruto swearing. "Ah. I should make sure he hasn't broken anything…" Kakashi ambled off, slowly and apparently without much concern in his step.

Sakura walked into sight from the side, and kneeled, offering a hand up. I took it, ignoring the fact that she blushed when I did. Once I was sitting upright, I shook my head, and looked up at the tree I had fallen from. I was able to recognize the branches I had first seen. That was _not_ a short distance. Over to the side, I could see Naruto glowering and clutching his head, in what looked like a one-sided argument with Kakashi.

"You almost had it that time," Sakura said, trying to be encouraging. The worst part was she wasn't actually _wrong_.

I stared up at the tree. Apparently tree climbing was still the plan regardless.

Naruto's shouting interrupted my thoughts, and Sakura and I ended up staring in his direction. "Yeah?! I might be dumb sometimes, but you're still stupid, too, ya know!" With that parting remark, he sulked over to where we were, still clutching the crown of his head with a grumpy expression.

Kakashi did not look chastened in the least as he wandered off.

Sakura made a face as he departed. "He's such a jerk."

"Right?" Naruto grumbled. "Sakura, we've been doing this for _ages_ now. How did you figure it out so fast?"

She gave a light shrug at the question. "I'm not really sure," she admitted. "I was always good with the practice exercises we did in the Academy, but I still really had to work hard at practicing for the ones we needed to do to pass. I could perform them, but I couldn't make the clone or henge last at all and it took _forever_ before I could even substitute anything that wasn't right next to me."

Naruto's eyebrows crinkled together. "Really? But you were a natural at them when Iruka-sensei made us do them in class!"

Sakura looked half-offended. "Yeah, because I practiced so much at home! What did you think, that I just _knew_ how to do them!?"

Naruto laughed, nervously. "Uh…"

"You did, didn't you!" The near-offense turned to horror. "Is that why you were always so bad at everything? Didn't you _study anything!?_ " Even as she was saying it I could tell she was refusing to believe it.

"Uh… Kinda? Near the end?" Naruto took a step backwards.

"How did you even pass in the first place? _How did you make it through the whole Academy without bothering to learn_?"

Naruto was looking increasingly concerned. "The old man said I couldn't become Hokage if I didn't pass, so... I had to? I tried to take the exam early to graduate twice because it wasn't like I was learning anything cool."

There went the rest of Sakura's faith in Konoha's education system. First Kakashi had ruined her faith that the system would always reward hard work with success, and now Naruto was proving you didn't even need hard work to pass at all. "That isn't how it works! We had classmates who dropped out of the academy because they didn't think their scores were high enough and you're just telling me you— you— Agh!" She gave up, sputtering.

I debated on whether to say anything or not, before giving in. "The fact that you had to practice so much probably helped."

"That would explain her refined chakra control," Kakashi mused, dropping down from the tree above us.

Naruto and Sakura yelled in surprise. "STOP DOING THAT, SENSEI!" Sakura's shouting was much more coherent, over Naruto's.

Kakashi waved it off. "The fact that she doesn't have the same reserves as either of you do is the factor here. Her chakra control is much better for it, but… compared to, say, Naruto… hm. She's like a puddle. Sakura-chan will need to work on expanding her reserves, if she wants to keep up. The two of you, on the other hand..." He eyed the progress marked on the trees. "Naruto, you need to send more chakra to your feet if you want to stick at all. Sasuke, you're doing better than you started, but you're still using too much for the trees to withstand. That's why the bark is breaking the way it is. You're using so much to try and stick that it's pulling the bark off the wood."

All three of us stared at him.

"Uh… Did you actually try to teach us something useful for once?" Naruto asked.

Kakashi stared back. After a moment, he finally spoke. "Hm, so I did." He vanished in a cloud of smoke, leaving behind a log and the lingering suspicion on my part we had just experienced more of Kakashi as a person than he was comfortable with being aware had been experienced by others. I could relate.

"Why is he like this?" Sakura looked at the substituted log with exasperation.

"I don't know. Maybe he's a perfectionist with anxiety issues?" I speculated as I stood back up. If Kakashi was serving as a terrible reflection of myself from my subconscious, that was the answer that went the farthest, if I was being honest.

Sakura and Naruto eyed me, before looking at each other and apparently deciding to not say anything.

Sakura sighed. "He at least told you both what you're doing wrong, but how am I supposed to expand my reserves? I don't want to be a puddle!" She pouted, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at Naruto.

"If you don't mind, I could help you train," Haku's soft voice said. The teen stepped into view from the foliage beyond. He was dressed in his pink kimono, an empty basket hanging from his arm. Zabuza hadn't been injured this time, so I wondered what he was doing.

Naruto grinned widely, dropping his hands from his head. "Haku!"

"I thought you both were getting your things?" Sakura asked. "Isn't that what you said?" She wasn't quite looking at him.

Haku looked at us through his eyelashes. "Not yet. Zabuza-san is negotiating for new lodging first. The woods here in Wave have some useful plants. I'm planning on leaving Gato's men something to remember me by. But I can put that off for now." He smiled gently.

I firmly reminded myself that Haku had just told us he was probably going to poison multiple people, presumably for revenge that may or may not be rooted in pettiness. Appearances were deceptive. He was absolutely capable of being an asshole.

"That would be great!" Naruto answered. "Especially since Kakashi-sensei just took off like that."

"He's so useless at times," Sakura grumbled. She was still not looking directly at the older teen. "We'd really appreciate it." She blushed.

She was _crushing on him_. I had _not_ seen that coming— and yet, it made so much sense. Fangirls loved Haku, and he was one of the series' very many, many dark haired serious youths. In that context, it made absolute sense that Sakura would find him attractive. She had a crush on me— no, _Sasuke,_ I refused any acceptance on my part, that was just weird and awful— after all.

Haku's eyes widened for the briefest of moments, and he shifted his footing somewhat, his grip on the basket tightening just the slightest. He didn't seem to know how to react to that at all. I wondered if it would have been from him actually being a normal teen in that respect, or if his time with Zabuza meant he wasn't even exposed to that kind of thing usually. Considering in the show that he had basically sought out the most friendly-seeming member of Team Seven as soon as he could, and then with this dream he had again gone out of his way to interact with us when he didn't have to, I suspected I was interpreting Haku as being _lonely_. He directed his attention towards me. "Sasuke-kun, why don't you try first?" he suggested, with a smile.

I hesitated for a moment before I nodded. It occured to me, belatedly, that I had no idea what to do. I didn't know how to use chakra. A part of me screamed that I did, in fact. Presumably it was the bit of my subconscious that was actually getting filled in on everything I would otherwise have no business knowing. Whether I did or didn't, I sure as hell wasn't going to admit to it. I picked up a kunai from the ground that, I could only assume, was the one Kakashi had handed off to Sasuke to score the tree with.

I looked up at the tree. While bullshitting was a skill I did have, I didn't think I could bullshit so well that I could fool my own subconscious. Regrettably, I decided to listen to the bit that was insisting that it _did_ in fact claim it knew what to do.

It was complete bullshit. I dismissed it completely.

Gripping the kunai, I ran for the tree. One, twothreefour— I was already losing momentum and I wasn't even nearly close to the middle of the score marks on the tree. While a fall from this height wouldn't be as painful as the one I had started this dream with, it didn't mean I wanted a repeat at any height. I slashed out with the kunai in frustration and pushed off with the final step, landing several feet away from the tree on my feet. It wasn't nearly as impressive as the multiple flips that Sasuke could do in the show. Of course, said flips wouldn’t even have been possible from that meager distance, so the point was irrelevant. I couldn't resist glowering at the tree.

"Wow, Sasuke, that really sucked!"

I huffed out a breath. I _refused_ to fail against an imaginary tree. Or lose to a child, for that matter.

I reluctantly decided to give some credence to the dream logic that was telling me what to do. Not all of it, though; the part that was insisting on full press with everything for the most effect was stupid. Instead of pushing on the metaphorical gas pedal, I needed to just use it better. Like driving. Spinning your tires did nothing. It also unfortunately aligned with Kakashi's remarks before he had realized he was being helpful.

I inhaled, and after stealing a glance at the other three— Sakura biting at her lip a bit, split between looking at me and frowning at Naruto, Naruto still looking way too amused at my abject failure, and Haku's impassive expression— I backed up until I had much more clearance.

If chakra could be used to _attract,_ then it could be used to _repel_ , too. I tested that with my first few steps back towards the tree, internally shoving that not-quite sensation I had been ignoring through the last several dreams through my legs and out of my feet. _Push_. Not pull. I _rocketed_. Any more and I would have tumbled ass over head. I pulled some of it back before I humiliated myself any further.

I barely had time to shift those concepts around in my head as the first foot hit the bark of the tree, and then the next. I could already tell there was a difference from before— _which before?_ — only further aided by the burst of momentum that gave me the chance to make more changes before I ravaged the tree further.

I heaved myself into one of the upper branches.

This was some serious bullshit.

I looked down.

Sakura was clapping, and Haku was looking directly at me with what I could only cautiously peg as an intrigued expression on his face. Naruto's face, though, made me snort, because it was quickly transitioning from open astonishment to being crowned with the realization that he was now the only one who hadn't succeeded at tree climbing with chakra yet.

Naruto started to wave his arms. "Hey! Hey! Sasuke! How'd you do that!?" he shouted up at me.

I had no damn idea. I shrugged.

"That was an impressive turn-around," Kakashi's voice said, from above and behind me. "Maybe I should try giving advice more often."

I dropped from the tree in surprise. On the plus side, the drop was far enough that I was able to land with dignity, albeit with the use of further dream ninja bullshit. I scowled in the general direction I had heard him in.

"What happened?" Sakura asked.

"Kakashi's up there," I answered. There wasn't really any point in not answering.

Sakura squinted up at the trees. "Sensei! Stop being weird!"

We were probably making a terrible impression on Haku. Then again, he had voluntarily exposed himself to all of this. He had no obligation to stick around. Like that, what sympathy I had for him dropped slightly.

To my surprise, Haku's attention was focused on me. While Sakura busied herself shouting at the canopy of leaves, he spoke, so quietly I almost missed it. "You were running quite fast, before you reached the tree."

I _had_ , hadn't I? Sasuke had done something similar in the series— but not until he had tried to fight Haku one on one. It was a surprise to Zabuza and Haku there, so it wasn't that shocking that that was something Haku would have focused his attention on, especially if he was used to being one of the fastest in a given fight.

"It came down to the same thing as the tree climbing," I said, ignoring the intensity of his gaze. His wasn't even close to some I had seen, so it wasn't even that bad. "I used what I gathered in my feet to push against the ground, instead."

Haku made a thoughtful sound. "Naruto-kun, could you try doing that? It might be easier to do it that way, first, if Sasuke-kun made such a vast improvement that way." With that, I had the new certainty that things were about to become interesting, if not on purpose. Haku, like Kakashi, was a prodigy. Haku, also like Kakashi, absolutely had no experience trying to teach. Unlike the jounin in question, however, Haku seemed intrigued by the idea of teaching others. All three of these things, combined with no real supervision from someone who knew what they were doing, meant I was going to be very disappointed if something hilariously unexpected or crushing _didn't_ happen.

Naruto looked taken aback, but resolve soon set in on his face and straightened his back. "Yeah! I can do it!" He made a fist. "Believe it!" He gazed around the small clearing we were in, probably mapping it in his head, before taking off at a run. The first few seconds showed no real difference from how he normally ran, the only change being his face scrunching up with focus and frustration. Then, with no real warning, on his next step, his eyes widened when he bounced. He must have panicked, because the next time one of his feet touched the ground it rocketed him far into the air. The three of us watched as Naruto tumbled higher and higher.

There was no way to tell how far he would have actually gone, because Kakashi leapt out from the trees and caught Naruto midair before he had the chance to gain any more air. He broke his own momentum by landing against a large tree on the other side of the clearing, before dropping down and giving Haku what was probably intended as a look of reproach. He let Naruto go, not bothering to watch him fall to the ground. "Consider finding yourself some different children to experiment with instead?"

"My apologies," Haku said, actually sounding contrite. I imagined he probably actually was, considering there was no way for him to expect that would have been the result, and the fact that what might have been his first attempt at trying to help others train had ended up like this. "I'm sorry, Naruto, I should have tried this myself first." I really doubted that would have prepared him anyways, when it came to Naruto.

"Are you kidding?" Despite the ungracious release from Kakashi's grip, Naruto didn't seem to mind too much. He sat right back up, a look of wild glee on his face matching the extra unruliness of his hair. "Did you see how _far_ up I went!? That was great!"

I wondered how many months or even days this would shave off of Kakashi's life expectancy. What was visible of his face looked even more long-suffering than usual. "Please don't try to do that on purpose. There's a _reason_ we don't regularly launch ourselves into the air."

"Why's that?" Naruto asked, though I thought the answer was pretty obvious.

"People tend to die if they land wrong from a few hundred foot drop," Kakashi flatly answered.

"Oh."

Kakashi didn't seem particularly enthused by receiving that kind of flat-footed reaction, but it didn't stop him from looking like he was coming up with something anyways.

Sakura eyed him, and stepped over to stand next to me.

"You know… what I have noticed is that the obstacle training has done wonders for all of you," Kakashi casually said. I tried to ignore the confusing pit in my stomach that was developing as he spoke. "Maybe Naruto just needs some extra incentive to learn faster."

"Obstacle training?" Haku wondered out loud.  
  
Naruto's eyes widened. "I thought we were going to take a break from all of that on this mission?"

"Since you've insisted so much… I've decided to change my mind. Don't worry, you won't have to set anything up." The smile that reached his visible eye didn't match his tone. "They came up with a very interesting and effective method of training their first day under me," he told Haku. "You'll be on their side. For today… hm. You're a valid target unless you're in the act of tree climbing using chakra." A valid target for _what_ , he didn't say. "You have to the count of ten before I start. Oh, and no standing in place, that's just cheating. Now. One. Five."

Naruto yelped the second Kakashi skipped to five. "That's not fair!"

Sakura wasn't even trying to complain this time. "Less talking, more running!"

"Your sensei isn't very conventional, is he?"

I didn't bother to say anything. I was already running.

It turned out that Kakashi's vague threats— mixed with the nature of the 'training'— worked much better to get Naruto to learn than just setting him at the task. Or at least it did after the first several times he got ambushed after increasingly frantically trying to run up any given tree. It probably helped that Kakashi had no compunctions against picking off the harder targets when he got bored with attacking Naruto, either. Even Haku, who was fast enough that I rarely saw him _not_ scaling one of the trees, ended up struck out of the sky at one point when he was trying to escape Kakashi's notice. Eventually it got to the point where Naruto was consistently managing to run up the trees with or without a running start.

It only stopped when Sakura went from running to the next tree to suddenly collapsing. Kakashi dropped down next to her, holding up a hand to motion for everyone else to stop as he checked on her.

Naruto, sufficiently distracted, fell from the tree he was scaling, only barely managing to use a kunai dragged against it to slow himself down before he was able to move into a controlled jump. "Hey! Is Sakura okay?"

"Why am I so tired? I can't move," Sakura half-wailed. Her voice sounded reedy from fatigue.

After a moment, Kakashi turned to look at everyone else, still crouched by Sakura's prone form. "Chakra exhaustion. Oops." He didn't sound apologetic or surprised in the least. "I think that's enough for today."

Haku landed neatly near me. In spite of however long it must have been— the shadows that earlier had only been the thinnest slivers against the noon sun were by now stretching in the late afternoon light— he still looked as put together as he had when he had shown up. The only difference was that the polite almost-smile from earlier had disappeared, replaced with a much fuller sincere one. "That was enjoyable. Thank you for allowing me to join in, Kakashi-san."

After all of that, I felt like I was going to wake _up_ exhausted. The fact that Haku didn't seem remotely tired at all was unfair.

Kakashi flapped a hand in Haku's direction before he scooped one arm under Sakura's knees and the other under her back to carry her, before he stood up. "Maybe we should call you Sakura-hime, if this ends up happening more often," he joked.

Sakura looked up at his face, listless. "Sensei, I'll bite you."

"Ah, what a cute joke."

Naruto looked over at Haku, who had gone back to his earlier polite not-smile in the face of this. He sidled over to us. "She's not really joking," was his helpful input, in a half-whisper.

At least Haku was amused. He looked up at the sky for a moment. "I should go. I still have things to do before I meet up with Zabuza-san," he said, before giving another sincere-looking smile. He collected his basket— miraculously untouched— from where he had set it and began to walk away.

Naruto enthusiastically waved at the older teen's departing figure. "Bye, Haku!"

Kakashi led the way to Tazuna's house, Naruto and I trailing after him.

I still felt worn out from however long that training had taken, but Naruto was already looking chipper again, even under his now-dirty face. A couple twigs hadn't yet escaped from his messy hair, though he was cradling his head with his hands weaved together. "Hey, hey! Sasuke, wasn't that great?"

"Yeah, sure," I said. I didn't feel bothered enough to try and feign enthusiasm.

Sakura managed to peer at us from Kakashi's shoulder. "Why are _they_ still fine?" Sakura had recovered enough to not sound as worn out. "This isn't fair."

"I _did_ say your reserves were like a puddle compared to Naruto's," Kakashi answered mildly. "And puddles dry up much faster than the ocean. Besides, being a ninja isn't fair. If you plan to keep up with them, you're going to have to work on your reserves, just like they'll have to work on their ability to control it."

"Fine!" Sakura said hotly. She _really_ wasn't taking being called a puddle well, especially like this. "Then I'm going to work hard and become the strongest kunoichi I can be!"

"Good luck there," I said. It wasn't like that was much of an impossible declaration, especially based off of the anime.

Sakura took it much more positively than I had actually intended. "See!? Sasuke thinks I can do it!"

"Try to not get too ahead of yourself," was Kakashi's response. Tazuna's house came into view. "Sasuke, you'll keep an eye on her while Naruto showers. Naruto, once you're done, switch off. I don't expect trouble just yet now that Gato no longer has ninja on retainer here, but I'm going to go into town to gather more information."

"If you don't think there's gonna be trouble, why are you having us guard Sakura?" Naruto squinted at the back of Kakashi's head in confusion. "Shouldn't we be keeping an eye on the old man and his family instead? Even the brat makes more sense, doesn't he?"

"None of them _should_ be in danger yet. As for Sakura-chan here, I said 'keep an eye' on. Not guard. There's a difference. We keep an eye on injured comrades. Even something as simple as chakra exhaustion can end up being dangerous if the person suffering from it pushes themselves, and it's more likely to happen with first timers who don't know their limits. Since she's young and has small reserves, she should bounce back quickly." For all of his usual blasé attitude, he was taking this seriously.

"Wait, you mean Sakura could _die_ from this!?"

"Yes," I said, at the same time that Kakashi went "No." He turned around to stare at me. Sakura was staring at me in horror as well.

"Sensei…." she began to wail.

Kakashi inhaled. "Yes, but barely _anyone_ dies from chakra exhaustion," he said. "It takes talent and idiocy to achieve that. Just be a good little obedient genin, don't move until tomorrow morning at the earliest, and I won't have to explain to the Hokage how I managed to let a genin die of chakra exhaustion of all things."

That at least got Sakura to quiet down, if possibly because the potential of such an ignominious death wasn't one she wanted to contemplate.

We entered Tazuna's house, where his daughter politely asked after Sakura's well-being while Naruto and the kid glowered at each other, before we made our way up to the room we were staying in. Kakashi only stuck around long enough after setting Sakura down on a futon to make sure Naruto actually left to shower before he left.

I ended up sitting cross-legged on the tatami, staring at the wall. This dream already _felt_ like it was much longer than all of the others so far, and yet it showed no sign of ending, no matter how much I willed it to do so. I eventually gave up, sighing heavily.

"I'm sorry I'm so boring," Sakura quietly said. She barely managed to turn her head to look at me.

"It's not because of you," I said, shrugging. "I'm just thinking about dreams."

"About dreams? What do you mean?"

I didn't have the chance to reply, because Naruto entered the room once more, freshly scrubbed and pink from the shower's heat. "Your turn, Sasuke!"

"Maybe I'll tell you later." I stood up, and soon found myself annoyed at everything again when I realized I had drifted automatically through the process of grabbing everything I would need and even finding the bathroom, when I ended up staring at the shower tap in the tiny wet room.

I tried to not think too hard as I washed myself down, using the coldest water I could. Even the sharp chill didn't do anything to shock me out of dreaming, and only left me in a fouler mood.

I returned fully irritated and chilled to the bone. By then, the sun had fully set. Naruto only took one look at me before making the active decision to not engage, continuing instead to chatter at Sakura about something or other. I didn't care enough to pay attention beyond to notice that the subject kept changing.

By the time Kakashi finally returned, it was late. I ended up falling asleep inside of my own dream.

I woke up to Naruto snoring in my ear.

The dream hadn't ended.

Kakashi was already awake, sitting against the wall by the door, partially out of his uniform. His flak jacket and hitai-ate were off, but the scarred eyelid was shut closed on the Sharingan, leaving his original eye focused on Sakura. "Ah, you're awake," he said, quietly.

I clamped down the urge to scream, yell. Something. Instead, I clenched my hands into fists tightly, until I felt the nails bite into the skin.

He raised an eyebrow at me, but didn't say anything as he stood up, lazily stretching, getting whatever kinks out of his muscles and joints that he could in the process before he picked up both hitai-ate and flak jacket. He shrugged the flak jacket on, and then started speaking. "You're on Sakura-duty, today," he said, matter-of-fact, as he zipped it up. "If she feels up to it when she wakes up, help her over to the shower. The hot water will help, but it isn't necessary. She should be back to normal by the end of the day. When Naruto wakes up, send him downstairs to escort Tazuna to the bridge."

"What are you doing, then?"

"I need to send a message to Konoha to let them know the mission parameters have changed. The closest messenger relay station is back in Fire. I'll be gone until after nightfall." Outside, it was just barely beginning to be light out. I wondered how serious he thought this mission had become, if he was willing to leave his genin basically to their own devices even for a day during an expected lull.

"And if something happens while you're gone?"

"Zabuza's apprentice will be on the bridge as well. If anything happens while I'm gone, listen to the missing-nin." He sounded like he suffered just by saying that. Considering how different this was ending up in comparison to the original story, I had no idea whether or not that was as awful as it actually sounded to me.

"I'll let Naruto know," I said.

For how still he went in response to that, I could only imagine it was trying to repress a shudder at the idea of telling Naruto— who even with a slightly improved impulse control in this dream was still _Naruto_ — to listen to someone who wasn't considered just a threat to his original village, but to the others, too. Another nugget of information I didn't really want, even though it was at least also implied from recently watching the show. Not for the first time in the last couple of weeks, I regretted that shitty bottle of cheap wine.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," was what Kakashi finally came up with in response. He pulled on his sandals and left through the window.

I reluctantly put away the futon and bedding— knowing how to fold them without thinking about it— and geared up. The fact it was all muscle memory meant that by the time I was done and sitting in a spot where I could watch the window my— Sasuke's— palms were covered in half-moon indents, some of them still fleshy red and deep. Not quite cuts, but still damage.

It was fully mid-morning by the time Naruto woke up. "Wow, Sasuke, you're already up? Where'd Sensei go?" he asked, as he stretched his arms up.

"He's sending a message back to Konoha," I said. "He's going to be gone all day. You're escorting Tazuna to the bridge." Before Naruto could ask, I added, "I'm supposed to stay here with Sakura."

He squinted at Sakura, who was still soundly asleep, even with how loud he was being. "Sure we can't switch?" he asked, at half of his usual volume.

"Kakashi said Haku will be at the bridge, too."

It was ridiculous how fast he changed his mind at being told that. "Really? Cool. I wonder if he can show me anything really neat..." While still musing on it, Naruto started getting ready to head out.

I shrugged half-heartedly.

It wasn't long until he left, heading downstairs. I could pinpoint when he encountered Inari based on the short burst of unintelligible shouting.

It ended up waking Sakura up, who groaned and shifted to one side, ending up facing me. Her eyes opened. "Oh... Sasuke." Her eyes fluttered for a moment, before she slowly struggled into sitting. "Where's everyone else?"

"Kakashi's running errands," I said, flatly. "Naruto's just left to escort Tazuna. We're on our own until he comes back." I didn't feel like specifying which one.

She listened to that, blushed, and then carefully lowered herself back down with what could only be called a whining sound. "I'm never pushing my limits like that again... I can't even enjoy this."

The rest of the day passed without anything interesting happening.

I slept again as Sasuke.

And again the next day.

And again.

Ad nauseum.

Nothing I could think of worked to wake myself up.

After the first few days, I began to notice that Kakashi started to keep me paired up with at least one member of Team Seven— usually him, if whatever separate schedule he was keeping himself on allowed for it. It was never alone with Haku, much less Zabuza. In comparison, Kakashi was actually encouraging, however reluctantly, Naruto's friendship with Haku to the point of sometimes changing whatever meagre pattern there was to the rotation he had figured out with the missing-nin.

I had no idea what the hell that could possibly be about.

After over two weeks of this— sixteen days, fifteen nights of false and dreamless sleep— I felt impossibly trapped. This wasn't a dream, it was a _nightmare_. The longer I was stuck, the more I found myself mulling more and more over what I remembered of this arc from watching it, and only found myself at a loss.

Kakashi had Sakura and I in position in the village on that sixeenth day.

However much of a bad mood I was in from the fact that I couldn't wake up— I _knew_ my brain was rattled, but was it rattled enough for _this?_ — I could still tell there was something different about the general atmosphere in town. It wasn't just me. Sakura looked alert and on edge whenever I looked in her direction.

It was too quiet for this time of day, with barely any people out in the open. Those who were looked more withdrawn than they usually did, hurrying to whatever their next destination was. Even the remaining shops that hadn't yet been pushed out of business were still closed, and any windows with shutters had them had them closed. It was more unsettling than the sullenness and desperation from before.

The most concerning part was that it said they knew something we didn't. It dragged out an old memory from when I was much younger, when we were with a tío, coming back from a visit to extended family. Even though we needed it, he refused to stop at the gas station in one of the last small towns for miles, instead buying some off a farmer with an ancient truck nearly an hour away. It wasn't until after he pointed it out that I realized that it was because the area was all but dead, even the gas station.

This was the same kind of scenario, I realized. While violence could happen any time and anywhere, with or without warning, these were the actions of people _expecting_ it to happen soon and were trying to limit how much direct harm they would experience. You didn't go about your day pretending things were normal when there was trouble waiting to happen.

Naruto was guarding Tazuna's family. In the original story, Gato's swordsmen had shown up to take a hostage. While they weren't up to fighting Haku, I wasn't sure how it would work out for Naruto alone if they got to either civilian first. I couldn't see that part of the story changing. He would need help, just in case. I would feel too guilty, even with this being all in my head.

I turned towards Sakura, who looked surprised, since I had barely made the effort to respond to any of them, much less start talking, in the last week. "Sakura. Run to Tazuna's. There's going to be trouble."

Her eyes widened in realization. "Tsunami-san and her son. Even with Naruto there, he might not be enough." She ran, much faster than she had been at the beginning of this dream.

Soon enough, she was out of sight and it was just me, left to belatedly realize that outside of a dream, this would have been a very stupid thing to do. Even _with_ it being a dream— or _coma—_ it was still really dumb of me.

I heard footsteps come too close from behind, and the delay right before something swung through the air was just enough for me to react. Not fast enough to completely dodge— I had waited too long— but enough to _completely_ regret not moving earlier. I jumped backwards, hissing in pain as I gripped my left shoulder. Again, like everything else, that had _hurt_. It was also far more painful than anything else I had tried or allowed to happen before this to try and wake up.

I was not nearly masochistic enough for seeing how many dream injuries it would take to wake up.

I looked up at the hulking figure that had clubbed my side. Nothing about him, from the way he was standing to the way he was dressed suggested he was a ninja, or even somebody used to actually fighting, since he had to stop moving before he even took a swing at me. He didn't even have a real weapon, it was a two-foot piece of iron rebar. He was just bulky— not actually hulking, it was that I was _small_ — and cruel looking. The sort of person who was used to beating the shit out of someone in unfair fights.

_But he's not a person, is he?_

I dropped my hand from my aching shoulder, and in one smooth gesture went from pulling a kunai from the holster to launching it in the air. He didn't even move. The kunai flew true, driving deep into his left eye, until only the ring on the handle was left exposed.

There was a not quite final breath out, the iron rebar dropping to the wooden walkway as the muscles in his hands relaxed, and he collapsed.

I yanked the kunai out, foot on his head as leverage, just as the next thugs came out, shouting in protest and anger at what I had just done.

It went like a blur.

None of them were actually good at fighting— even by real standards, it was the sort of thuggery that relied on numbers and mobbing, if they decided to get into a fight, and it was still the kind of shit most bouncers could clear out. And all they had were disadvantages, trying to attack me in this part of the village, where most of the buildings were on stilts with wooden walkways bridging them above the water. There wasn't enough room on the wooden walkways here for them to use sheer numbers.

I was small enough that I could maneuver where they couldn't.

I was fast, much faster.

And I was armed with a bunch of long range weapons, with very, very good aim.

I only vaguely heard the shouts to head to the bridge from one of Gato's men as the remaining ones retreated.

The only tells I had that time had passed was how hard I was breathing— along with how tired I felt, and the fact that the top of my arm where the first thug had got a hit in felt stiff from bruising setting in— and the fact that there were well over a dozen dropped bodies nearby.

It looked too real. My stomach churned in protest. I ignored it.

I collected the various kunai and shuriken I had used from still bodies. One was still desperately trying to breathe, hands clamped on his neck, when I pulled the shuriken out from his throat. I tried to not think about it, cleaning the blood on the shuriken and my hands off on his shirt before I stood back up.

If this was how many people Gato had sent to the _village,_ which would have no real value to him as an actual threat— he couldn't actually operate here if he got rid of _everyone_ — just how many would he have sent to Tazuna's house, or to the bridge?

I wondered if Kakashi had been expecting something like this. He was at the bridge with Zabuza and Haku today, and the village was something of a middle point between Tazuna's home and it. With Sakura and I here, it would have made it harder for more of his men to make it to Tazuna's without being noticed. The men he had left here hadn't been that hard to deal with, probably intended to frighten the villagers instead of anything more. I figured Sakura and Naruto would be able to deal with however many had gone after Tsunami and Inari, if it was just more than the original two. In the story, though… there had been a full mob of thugs on the bridge, and much better armed.

I pushed chakra into my legs— by now it was practically second-nature from evenings of practice— and ran for the bridge, still ignoring the roiling of my stomach.

By this time of day, the fog was low, and I didn't have to worry about visibility being reduced naturally. If Zabuza used that jutsu of his, I wasn't sure if I would see what I would come across in time. Thankfully— or not?— there was no sign of it as I got close to the current end of the bridge. In the distance, I could see a bulky looking ship was connected to the end of the bridge by a metal wired gangway that was hooked up to the railing.

It was already a battlefield by the time I reached them, and not a promising one. Zabuza's sword was visible from the middle of an immense crowd of armed men, it only occasionally dipping out of sight. Once in a while there was a streak of bright red— visible even from here— would splash in the air, from an upwards slice of his massive sword.

Further ahead, Tazuna and two of his workers were against the rails of one side, Haku standing in front of him in a defensive stance, dealing with another group. There was a semi-circle of prone bodies a dozen feet away from him. The rest were just outside of that distance. Most of Gato's men seemed to be short-range fighters, if they were unable to engage Haku at all, without hoping he didn't catch them in time.

I couldn't see Kakashi.

If he was dead, I had no idea how the rest of these dreams would end up going. Would it end up being Yamato, this early, or someone else?

"SASUKE!" _Oh, that's where he was._ Kakashi's voice had come from where I had pegged Zabuza as being. They were working together, then. I wondered how he had managed to see me, before I remembered that not only was he much taller and had a better vantage point by default, he was also probably using the Sharingan. "Where's Sakura!?"

"I sent her to help Naruto!"

"I'm happy you decided to care about your comrades, but you should have gone with her!" That did not sound particularly hopeful.

My opportunity to reply was cut off; several of the mercenaries had peeled off and were coming my way, now. They were not only better armed compared to the thugs in town, but covered up, as well. Their faces were still visible, though, and from how they were holding their weapons, they weren't expecting me to do anything. They looked like full grown men, after all, and I looked like a small child in comparison.

I didn't move, whether to back away or go head on.

I waited until they were closer.

The first several kunai flew true.

As the initial bodies dropped, kunai visibly lodged through their eye sockets or exposed throats, the ones that were behind them stalled.

Still targets were much easier.

My accuracy dropped when they began to defend themselves, trying to swat kunai and shuriken away with their weapons away or trying to move; the kunai and shuriken usually ended up lodging into the skull when the mercenaries tried that, sending streams of blood down their faces. Most of their reaction times weren't actually fast enough to actually knock either off course or move out of the way in time, when they were blocked in on either side. The only ones that saw real success were the ones that broke off, preferring to take their chances with the two jounin instead.

I was too far away from them.

I didn't have that many kunai left. If I kept this up, I was going to end up running low on shuriken as well.

I decided it would be an acceptable risk.

I walked to the closest body and using my foot as leverage, yanked the kunai out, doing my best to keep an eye on the edge of the battle ahead. The ones that went through bone were too hard to dislodge without making myself a target. By this point I was doing a pretty good job of ignoring the strong and still growing nausea.

I had collected about half when a hand gripped tightly around my wrist, stopping me from pulling a kunai out from the throat of a gurgling, shallowly breathing figure. I looked up.

"What. Are. You. Doing?" Kakashi was breathing hard, staring at me with both eyes. His mask was torn on the right side, revealing a pale cheek. Splattered blood— both fresh and dried— dotted his face, mask, and was matting strands of his hair together.

"I'm keeping myself armed."

He stared at me for a moment, the hard breathing gradually slowing. He swallowed before he finally spoke again.

"Go relieve Haku."

He didn't give me the chance to respond, only letting go of my wrist right before he shot back into the reduced fray, letting loose a spray of kunai and shuriken while he did. They all hit their targets.

I managed to run past the throng without issue by sticking close to the rail, though I couldn't resist throwing shuriken into the midst, where they were the densest packed. In the last few minutes, despite their mob tactics, they had been thinned down considerably, and I could see Zabuza and Kakashi near the center, their backs to each other.

Again, I was struck by how well they were working together. A good deal of it was probably because of Kakashi's Sharingan, but still. He couldn't see through the back of his head with it. With the number of enemies, the relative density, and location, both of them were seriously hindered. I could only assume the lack of visible jutsu was because it.

I was met with a dilemma that I realized once I was on the other side. How the hell was I supposed to 'relieve' Haku when he was surrounded?

"Sasuke-kun," Haku serenely acknowledged me with a nod of his head. He was standing on the railing now, which gave him more of a height advantage than he would have had otherwise. He looked unruffled, but the closest any of Gato's men had gotten to him wasn't nearly near enough for it to be an actual problem. Below him, Tazuna and the two workers that had been caught up in this mess didn't look like they were having as easy a time.

"Kakashi wants me to relieve you," I called to him, once I was on the farthest side, with the mercenaries positioned by Haku between me and the main fight. I didn't want to risk being snuck up on again. I didn't want to find out how a sword to the side or through the back would feel in this dream, after the shoulder blow. "How should I do this?"

"Hmm..."

There was a sudden glint in the air of metal reflecting sunlight, and the remaining men around him went down.

I uneasily stepped past the newly downed mercenaries, until I was in front of Haku. "...If you were able to do that, why did you wait until now?"

"Sometimes the best decision to make is to stand your ground," Haku answered, seriously. "I could keep them at a distance, but only in certain numbers."

"You didn't want to risk getting overrun," I realized.

He nodded. "I was told to guard Tazuna-san with my life. Attracting more attention would only make it more likely that I would fail." Haku turned his gaze towards where Zabuza and Kakashi were still fighting. They were beginning to show signs of flagging, and even from here I could see that one of Kakashi's sleeves had been torn loose. It swung in ribbons from his wrist as he moved. He gave me a small smile. "Your showing up was lucky. I'll actually be able to help, now." Still balanced on the rail, Haku started running in the direction of the fight. Zabuza's laugh ripped through the air when Haku jumped off of it, landing on a man's shoulders.

I guess this was my position, now.

Tazuna looked at me with a worried, tired expression. "Tell me, kid, do you know if my family's alright?"

"Sakura went to help Naruto before I ran over here," I said, feeling strangely guilty. It was just another thing to disturb the tempest that was my stomach right now.

His shoulders loosened, some of the worry leaving him.

I wasn't going to try to play cool by standing on top of the railing— that seemed like just a bad idea— so I stood in front of them, watching as the fight continued playing out.

Even with Haku's aid, the two jounin were showing signs of struggling more and more, even though by now there were probably more bodies on the concrete than there were still alive. Or at least uninjured enough to keep fighting. A short glimpse of Kakashi facing this direction showed he had pulled his hitai-ate back down over the Sharingan. I wondered how bad a sign that was; I couldn't remember any point in the series where he had _stopped_ using it in the middle of the fight.

Everything came crashing to a sudden halt with a shout. "HEY! HEY! SENSEI!" Naruto's loud, obnoxious voice heralding his presence couldn't have come at a better time. "LOOK! I BROUGHT HELP!"

Naruto, Sakura, and Inari were standing in front of men gathered from the village. The two genin looked significantly more beat up than they had when I had last seen them— even from here, I could tell that one sleeve of Naruto's jacket had a huge tear at the shoulder hem, and Sakura seemed to be sporting a large bandage around one arm— but they had shown up. All armed.

"IF YOU TRY ANYTHING ELSE, WE'LL STOP YOU OURSELVES!" Inari shouted. A roar rose up from the men behind him, shouting similar things.

It seemed to give the mercenaries pause for thought, enough for them to step backwards, dropping their weapons.

The screech of straining metal on metal filled the air from behind me, and I turned around just in time to see metal gangway snap in half as the ship began to shear its side against the side of the bridge. The concrete crumpled where the very top of the hull bashed against it, steam angrily pushing from its sides and its smokestacks. There was a splash of water as one of the recently set piles fell into the ocean, parts of its concrete falling across the ship.

It belatedly occurred to me I hadn't noticed if Gato— living or dead— was on the bridge earlier.

I sure as hell knew where he probably was _now_. A bridge; just not this one. The kind that was found on _ships_.

"No!"

Tazuna was the first to react, actually stepping in the direction of the damage; I was still too busy staring and trying to process the fact that the main bad guy from this arc was trying to personally kill us all with a ship. It had to be. This was too stupid to be anything else.

I tried to shake myself back into concentrating.

We were on the opposite side from the ship, thankfully, though even from here we could feel the bridge shake and shudder from the stress and damage it was sustaining. Cracks were already running through the concrete to where we were standing.

At least one of the workers had more sense than I did. He gripped Tazuna's arm, trying to pull him back. "Tazuna, we need to get going!"

"No! He needs to be stopped! He can't do this!"

The other worker grasped his other arm. "He is, and we need to move! You said yourself earlier, the concrete over here still needs time to finish setting! We can't repair the bridge if we're dead! Let the ninja handle this!"

"How are the ninja supposed to stop a ship!?" Tazuna shouted, as they started to pull him to safety.

I had no idea how the ninja were supposed to stop a ship. Even something like this was still a few hundred feet long. That, along with how wide it was across meant it was probably rocking some serious power, which was why it was able to bash against the concrete pillars like it was nothing.

There was another large splash as the ship smashed yet another pillar into the sea.

I was forced to focus a bit more closely when I felt my bruised shoulder get shaken. "Sasuke, we need to move." I looked up at Kakashi's face. "We can't fight a ship."

No, ninja couldn't stop a ship. Sailors could stop a ship. We just had to stop Gato.

"We have to get on the ship," I said, still staring at it, as it struggled to turn to take out the next concrete pile. Some of the mercenaries, backing too close to the rails on the opposite edge, fell backwards and into the water as another massive shudder ran through it.

"What. I might have given you the wrong impression from the trip over here, but _I'm only well-read_ and definitely not on anything that mechanical. I don't actually know everything. I don't know anything about ships or how to operate them."

Unfortunately for Kakashi, his goal of trying to get me to move was made more difficult by us being joined by the rest of the ninja.

Despite everything going on, Naruto had a wide, almost manic grin on his face, probably powered by adrenaline. Thin rope crossed over from one shoulder to past his hip, and the large blades of a Fuma shuriken poked just into sight from his back.

"Sasuke-kun! You're okay!" Sakura didn't just have a bandage around her left arm, but one applied to her right cheek. "I was so worried, when we went to the village to get help we heard there were a bunch of dead bodies in the area by the river, but we didn't have enough time to look…"

"We need to get on the ship," I repeated, to Kakashi's now much obvious exasperation. It was amazing how much easier it was to read him with a large chunk of his mask missing from one side, the torn portion folding down against the side of his jaw. "We don't need to stop the ship ourselves. We just need to stop Gato."

"How do you even know he's the one we need to stop?" Kakashi asked, staring at me intently.

"Who else is going to try to destroy the bridge by ramming a ship that expensive into it repeatedly?" I pointed out.

"Zabuza?" Naruto guessed.

Zabuza laughed, though it was haggard sounding even compared to before. This close up, it was noticeable how many small cuts and slices were running down his exposed arms, and there was a slow-oozing gash in his right arm, where something hadn't _quite_ succeeded in taking a chunk of him with it. "I _wish_."

"Something that big isn't able to be run by just one person. There's got to be a crew." There was another ominous shake, as the ship finally took out a third pile. "Ships have bridges, places to control them from, so Gato's probably there. It should be near the front," I tried to insist.

Kakashi gave me a tired look. "I'm running on empty," he said, frankly, before looking over at Zabuza, who shook his head.

"This shit isn't worth a suicide run, which is what it would be if I tried right now."

"I'll go," Haku spoke up.

A tense moment hung in the air, beyond what it already was from the destruction happening near us.

"You better fucking come back," was all Zabuza said.

"Sasuke, Naruto, Sakura. You three will join him," Kakashi said, half reluctantly. "This might be your idea, Sasuke, but he's in charge."

Haku nodded, and began to head for the other side of the bridge. Sakura looked between me and Naruto, as though for confirmation, and then started to follow him, the two of us trailing after her.

While it hung precariously without the concrete supports beneath on this side, creaking and groaning, this section showed no sign that it was going to collapse just yet. We weren't that far off from the next remaining pile, which was probably helping. At least as far as I could tell it wasn't going to collapse. It'd be a hell of an end for the dream, though.

Naruto gulped as he looked over the edge at the churning waters below. The ship's propellers were violently disturbing the water and the resultant wake of white water— choppy and uneven— was smashing against itself and the piles. "Uh, how are we planning on getting onto that ship? That's kind of a long way down, and if we miss..." He laughed, nervously.

"Don't worry, Naruto-kun," Haku said, kindly. "We're not jumping."

Sakura looked down at the ship as it tried to maneuver for its next target. "What are we doing, then?" The doubt was clear in her voice.

Haku gave her a reassuring smile. "We're going to wall-walk down the side of the bridge. Since you've all already managed tree climbing, this will be easy. We'll walk over and down the next pillar, and jump when the ship approaches." Haku set jumped over the railing, before he put one foot and then the other against the side, and was standing straight horizontally on the side of the bridge.

Naruto gulped. "Easy, right." He set his jaw, and hopped over the side as well, though he gripped one of the poles as he set his feet against the side. It was only after he was convinced he wasn't going to suddenly unstick and fall to his death that he let go of it.

Sakura and I went over the edge at the same time, but she looked more confident about it than I did.

It was only after that that Haku began to run, and so Team Seven followed.

Haku had lied. Running against the side of a bridge was a hell of a lot different from the tree climbing from before. Up and down were simple enough to handle, and even when gravity managed to exert control from a mistimed step or the incorrect amount of chakra, there was some time to fix it.

This time, there was only a few feet of concrete between us and empty air above the water. This was a serious disparity where the consequences of failure were concerned.

The first trouble came when the ship finally smashed against its next target just as we reached the pile in question. Naruto, caught mid-stride, wasn't anchored enough by chakra to not be dislodged by the resulting shockwave. He dropped with a shout of surprise, just barely managing to grab onto the closest thing, which happened to be one of my ankles around the upper end of the sandal.

I found myself slowly skidding down from his added weight until I pushed enough chakra to my feet to stop and the concrete cracked under them. I felt his nails dig into the skin as he gripped tighter. I gritted my teeth.

Sakura skidded to a stop, Haku a few paces ahead. "Naruto!" She turned back, and helped me haul Naruto back up and get his feet back under him. I felt a seeping sensation, and when I looked, I could see blood welling.

"Are you alright?" Sakura asked Naruto.

He nodded shakily, looking almost ashen under his tanned skin.

This appeared to satisfy Haku enough to push on. "Follow me."

He gracefully made the jump down to the side of the cracking pillar, and began to run down, giving us no choice but to run after him while it was in the middle of collapsing under our feet, the concrete cracking apart, falling into the sea and onto the ship. Halfway down, he made the jump to the top of the ship, with a much smoother landing than we did. Naruto landed unevenly on a jagged block of concrete, barely missing the iron rebar that had once reinforced it. Mine was shaky, threatened by my now injured ankle. Sakura, who had taken up the rear on the final stretch, dealing with a barely controlled descent the whole way down, ended up rolling, stopping herself with barely enough time to not fall off.

My head tried to insist that evading the giant chunks of falling concrete that occasionally dropped alarmingly close to us was simple, after Kakashi's training. Like my still-nauseated stomach, I ignored it.

Haku quickly figured out where the ship's bridge was. He turned back towards us, standing at the very edge, seemingly ignorant of the danger. "Sasuke-kun, you know fire jutsu, don't you?" Zabuza had definitely figured it out, then, though it was a bit of a leap in assumptions. "I'd like your help after I'm done."

None of us had the chance to ask what he was doing before it was made clear; a thick sheet of ice spread across the top of the ship, and flowed down the front windows, to the next deck and down the hull until it reached the water, where the ice immediately broke apart from the churn.

I had a sudden suspicion that Haku was expecting us to use science. I suddenly felt very betrayed by myself. I had no idea what to expect from adding a fireball to frozen glass and metal, and had a suspicion I was about to remember something from high school.

Haku moved back.

As I stepped forward, even though it wasn't quite wanted, the hand seals floated to the top of my mind, fingers following along. _Horse. Tiger_.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!"

I blew out an immense fireball that engulfed my vision entirely. Mixed with the sound of its blaze, I could hear the cracking of once frozen metal becoming superheated from direct contact with the blaze along with the bursting of exploding glass just out of view.

 _Oh_.

When the fireball finally diffused, down to a wispy fire that was uncomfortably heating my forearms with its proximity, even through the arm warmers— which I now suspected were actually to _help_ protect against that kind of heat, instead of being to keep me warm— Haku didn't waste any time, dashing forward, leaping down, and then out of sight as he presumably went through one of the now-blasted windows.

Naruto and Sakura ran after him, Sakura sparing a quick glance behind her to make sure I was still coming along.

I started to move.

I dropped in through a window that didn't even have any shards of glass clinging to its frame, and ended up sliding down some kind of front console that had navigational charts on top of it, that I ended up stepping on when I was on the floor.

The inside of the bridge was a utilitarian thing, light gray paint and modest flooring, with large metal boxy consoles for controlling the whole thing. The only sign of pride was a tall chair mounted on one side, its leather upholstery now shredded by glass. Cowering before us were three cut up men in partially shredded white uniforms— crew members— who looked like they had taken the vast majority of the blow from the glass shards. They weren't who we were here for.

Gato stepped out from behind the station that took up the middle, striking at the closest sailor with his cane. "I don't pay you to cower! Stop them!" The ship heaved a moment later, at a sharp angle that made everything tilt.

Naruto yanked the Fuma shuriken from his back, one in each hand, and grinned as he began to make a declaration. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto! We're here to stop you from terrorizing the people of Wave and making sure Tazuna's bridge can be built!"

Gato sneered. "You're just a bunch of brats."

"No, we're shinobi," Haku said, quietly. He looked at Naruto. "I'm sorry, Naruto-kun, but I can't let you do this just yet."

Naruto looked at Haku with wide-eyed confusion. "Do what?"

Haku moved, so fast there was barely any continuity between where he had been and where he now was, standing in front of Gato.

There was a gurgle, and before any of us could react, Gato's head fell to the floor, where it rolled until it hit the outer wall of the room, the rest of the body collapsing at the same moment backwards, out of our sight.

* * *

My alarm jarred me awake, the time and date staring at me in the face. It was Tuesday. All of that had been in a single night. All of the days, and the deaths. A long-lasted dream, a bad nightmare, uniquely awful and violent.

Reminded of it, my stomach finally began its rebellion, and I rolled out of bed, my knee giving out on me momentarily before I shoved myself back into standing, and ran for the toilet without even bothering to stop the alarm.

As I heaved the remnants of last night's dinner out into the bowl, my phone's alarm still blaring for attention, I couldn't get the images out of my mind, no matter how much I told myself it wasn't real. There was no blood actually on my hands.

It wasn't real. It wasn't real. Maybe if I kept telling myself, it'd sink in for long enough for the images to get out of my head.

I skipped breakfast before I headed to campus after that, and I was queasy the whole day, unable to keep the images of dead men with ruined eyes or shredded throats out of my head.


	7. It's in My Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return to Konoha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to Tavina and PoorCynic for beta-reading. A surprise extra update!

"It ended up being behind schedule because of Gato, but we couldn't have done it without you. Thank you for helping the Great Sakura Bridge get completed," Tazuna said. He sounded and looked grateful, a hand clapped on his grandson's shoulder. Inari's face was ruddy from tears, though he looked relatively happy.

We were on the bridge. Team Seven was facing Tazuna and his family, while Zabuza and Haku were standing off to one side.

I tried to resist the urge to groan, but it came out sounding more like a half-cut off grumble. I didn't _want_ this. None of it. Not when I had such a hard time falling asleep in the first place, struggling to get last night's nightmare out of my head. And here I was, dreaming it all yet again.

Naruto nudged me in the side with his elbow, giving me a sly look as he did, completely unaware of my suffering. At some point the tear in his jacket's shoulder hem had been sewn back together. It was barely visible, especially with the straps of his pack resting on his shoulders. _Tsunami fixed it_.

"Hey, hey, isn't it cool Sakura got something named after her?" he tried to whisper. It was still loud enough to get attention from Haku." And we're just genin! I wish it was me, but I guess she _did_ stop the whole fight with Zabuza and Haku in the first place…" His voice was a mix of admiration and envy.

Standing right next to Kakashi, Sakura's face was a bright red, probably from all of the attention. Having a giant bridge named after her was probably not on the list of things she wanted to accomplish or be known for.

I looked away from him to get a better idea of what was going on now. We were standing at the other end of the bridge near Fire. With how clear the day was, it was possible to see just make out Wave in the distance. A short distance down the coast here, where the cliffs eventually abated, I could see the fishing village we had started out from. It really wasn't that far at all.

"Konoha will be sending another team in two months to work on an agreement for a payment plan," Kakashi said, clearly suffering. As much as _I_ didn't want this dream to be happening, he apparently wanted all of this even less. "The village understands that it will take some time for Wave's economy to recover, and is willing to work with you."

"Thank you," Tazuna said, once more. "It might be awhile, but I've already been told to report to Wave's Daimyo. I've heard he's planning on seizing all of Gato's assets that are in this country."

Kakashi nodded, and then unsnapped one of the pouches on his flak jacket, letting a thin message scroll drop into his hand, still bound and unread, before he turned towards Haku and Zabuza. Everything about his body language radiated serious unwillingness.

Zabuza snorted. "What is it, Kakashi?"

"Because of his skills, unique kekkei genkai, and official lack of affiliation with any hidden village, I was instructed to offer Haku the opportunity to join Konoha. If he does, it comes with a year long probationary period as a chuunin before he's offered the chance to be promoted to tokubetsu or full jounin status, as well as a plot of land within the village walls," Kakashi said, completely tonelessly, as tension rose palpably in the air. Zabuza's hand clutched onto Haku's shoulder. "This is a great honor, coming directly from the Konohagakure council itself and approved by the Sandaime Hokage."

Haku gave Kakashi a polite smile. "Please let them know that I'm flattered, Kakashi-san, but my place is by Zabuza-san's side. He has plans I believe in and want to help achieve." His tone at the beginning didn't quite match his words.

"How terrible. I'll be sure to mention it in my report." Kakashi chucked the scroll over his shoulder. Considering it was made of paper and there was a strong breeze, it was impressive that it made it past the railing, where it fell to the sea.

Naruto's face fell. "You won't even think about it?"

"Sorry, Naruto-kun." Haku shook his head. "It might be your home, but it wouldn't be able to be mine. The people precious in our lives have different paths and directions. I could always write to you. I'm sure we'll be able to meet again in the future." Haku's smile this time was more earnest.

"Yeah! You could visit someday!" Somehow I got the feeling that the whole bit about how missing-nin worked had failed to fully get through Naruto's head. While Haku apparently didn't count as one, he still _worked_ with one.

"I promise," Haku told him.

Both of the jounin shifted awkwardly on their feet, and I tried to look away.

Kakashi feigned a cough. "Anyways…" He trailed off for a moment. "We should get going." He self-consciously nodded to Zabuza, and turned away. He didn't even bother to wait and check that we were following before he began walking.

Naruto finally realized that this meant we were actually leaving, and tears momentarily brimmed at his eyes. He immediately wiped them away on his sleeve. "Yeah… we should… Bye Inari! Bye Haku!"

Sakura's face was only beginning to recover from her intense blushing earlier. "We're glad to have helped Wave, Tazuna-san," she said, with a short bow. "And um… it was nice to meet you, Zabuza-san, Haku-sempai." Her face flushed pink again, and before anyone could reply to her, she bolted.

I couldn't even pretend I had anything to say. I shrugged, and looked at Naruto contemplatively. He showed no sign that he was going to move on his own if he wasn't prompted to leave his new friends. I grabbed his arm, and started to pull him along with me.

Even though we were trailing with an increasing gap behind the other two, he still turned around to wave goodbye, digging his heels in. I started to drag him in response.

Zabuza started laughing, and it only began to die down by the time we reached solid ground.

It wasn't until Naruto started to move under his own power that we began to catch up to Kakashi and Sakura. When he finally turned around, he wiped his face away with his sleeve again."I'm glad we didn't have to fight Haku," he said to me.

"Mmhm," I went. It wasn't until Naruto began to chatter at me more that I realized I even responded to him.

"Hey, hey, Sasuke, do you think he'll really write to me? I hope he does, he said that because of Zabuza trying to kill the Mizukage and the whole missing-nin thing they travel around a lot, but that'd mean I wouldn't be able to write back to him, huh? But then again he _did_ promise..."

Eventually, we caught up to the others, catching Kakashi mid-lecture. Or, to be more accurate, at the end of one, cut off because of our arrival.

"...which is what led to the events of the Second Shinobi World War. And _that_ is _why we don't try to interfere with foreign governments,_ hm?"

Sakura's eyes looked almost glazed over. "Why didn't we go over any of this in the academy?"

"Probably to not give any ambitious idiots stupid ideas," Kakashi said, all too frankly. "That and genin aren't really supposed to know." He looked at his fingernails.

" _Then why did you tell me?"_

"Well, not _knowing_ certainly didn't stop you, did it?"

"What were you talking about?" Naruto asked.

"Nothing for genin," Kakashi said, brushing the topic aside entirely. "You two took your time to catch up."

"I wanted to say goodbye!"

"That's nice," Kakashi said, doing his level best to sound thoroughly uninterested. His expression and tone took a change for the serious. "Now that we're actually on our way back, this is a good time to debrief on our mission, to get some things across properly that I wasn't able to explain when we were there.

"I want it to be as clear as possible that not only was that mission _not_ normal, but that it was a failure in _multiple ways_. It was a failure of intelligence: missions from potential clients from foriegn countries are supposed to be checked against our knowledge of the region to make sure they're not misrepresenting or even lying. If even one person had paid closer to the situation in Wave beforehand, it would _not_ have been an available mission that morning, much less for a fresh team of genin.

"There was a failure of training." Kakashi looked directly at Sakura. "Sakura, you tried to intervene between two jounin. I didn't think I had to make that an explicit order, but it looks like I was wrong. You're _lucky_ he listened. That barely ever happens. If he hadn't, you would have made yourself a target. Momoichi is known as the 'Demon of the Hidden Mist'. Do you know why?"

Sakura mutely shook her head.

"Until relatively recently, the various ninja academies had very different standards. Kiri's used to require combat to the death. Their students had to kill at least one other person in order to genin. Momochi Zabuza killed a whole graduating class." Both Sakura and Naruto looked at him in shock.

"What!? But he seemed—" Naruto cut himself off, scrubbing his face as he tried to search for the words he wanted. "Uh, not _nice_ I guess, he was kinda a huge asshole, even to Haku, but he didn't _act_ like a demon or a monster." There was a lingering thoughtfulness to Naruto's words as he considered everything.

Sakura looked like she was still processing what Kakashi was implying. "Why didn't you tell us this until just now?!"

"Because as funny as it _might_ have been, your actions meant they were working with us and I couldn't risk you doing _more_ than you already did by opening your mouth in the first place. None of you are remotely capable of holding out against a jounin, much less one of his reputation. I was under the impression the three of you would actually trust me enough to keep you safe and follow orders meant to keep you out of danger. I was wrong."

"Uh… why would we? All we've done for training is either getting kicked around or avoiding getting hit by kunai and fireballs," Naruto asked.

"And when the Demon Brothers showed up _you played dead."_ Sakura was increasingly looking fed up.

"I wasn't aware any of you had managed to forget your training from the _academy_ so quickly," Kakashi said, ignoring Sakura's comment entirely.

Kakashi's comment only incensed her further, and it looked like Sakura was at her boiling point. " _I was doing what you said!_ " she shouted, before I even had the chance to weigh if I wanted to respond to Naruto or not. " _You're_ the one who said we have to 'look beneath the underneath'! I did! _You're_ the one who said 'those who break the rules are trash but those who would abandon their teammates are worse than trash'! Isn't that supposed to _include you_ , too? Or are you just as big a hypocrite as you act like all the time!?" The bell test and his speech hadn't been forgotten, and combined with her temper she was throwing it in his face. _She was friends with Ino too long to not pick up tricks like that_. I mentally shoved the intrusive thought away.

I stepped to the side, dragging Naruto over with me. He didn't resist, eyeing both Kakashi and Sakura with alarm. "This is getting ugly, huh?" he whispered to me.

What was visible of Kakashi's face stilled for a moment into something almost sullen, his shoulders taut, before it disappeared. "And if I am? It doesn't matter. My priorities, as the jounin in command of this team, are to keep you all safe where I'm able and train you all to eventually become chuunin. Your actions were a gross overreach and impacted my ability to do that duty."

This was too much for Naruto. He ran ahead to stand in front of them, stalling us entirely. "You're _both_ being dumb and this is dumb, you know?! You didn't tell us everything you could have! It isn't Sakura's fault you didn't! She was just trying to help! Yeah, maybe it could have gone real bad, but wasn't it going to any way in the first place if you fought him? We all saw Haku show up! And maybe she's been bossy and stuff, but it's not like you've done much to make us know you're actually gonna do what you said!

"And Kakashi-sensei's trying, Sakura! It's not like we're back in the academy, with Iruka-sensei, or even Mizuki-sensei." Naruto made a face, but pushed on. "We're not the only ones new to this, yeah? He _said_ we're the first team he's ever passed, so how's he gonna know how to teach and stuff? We all have to trust that we're gonna try to do the best thing for everybody, yeah? I mean, I know it's not that easy, like it's gonna happen just because I said, but we need to try! We can't let _one_ mission gone wrong stop us!" He laughed at himself, self-consciously, and the moment broke.

Sakura no longer looked as heated, and she ducked her head down for a bit, her expression momentarily hidden when her hair cascaded around her face. When she looked back up, her face was set with a determined expression. "You're right, Naruto."

Naruto's eyes lit up as his smile widened, no longer looking as self-conscious as he had just seconds before. "I am? Uh, yeah! Of course I am!" It turned into a full grin.

She looked up at Kakashi. "When we get back, I'm introducing you to Iruka-sensei. _He_ knows how to actually teach."

Kakashi looked taken aback. "There's no need for that," he answered, holding his palms up like it would ward her off. "He was the one at the mission desk, wasn't he? I wouldn't want to bother him..."

Naruto moved to walk next to me, now that the tension had broken, and gave me a sly grin, before he leaned over to almost-whisper, "That was close!"

I indulged him by nodding. "Yeah." I didn't want to think about how effective his little speech had been, when it came to stopping the argument.

While I was distracted by Naruto, Kakashi seemed to have recovered his metaphorical footing. "We'll debrief properly when we're in Konoha. There's more that we have to cover. I'll need all of your input for the full mission report." He idly looked upwards. "Without a civilian to escort, we'll be able to make better time to Konoha, but only if we actually start moving. Sasuke, take point."

Trying to ignore the confused thoughts of my head— the ones voicing a protest that was normally _Naruto's_ position— I shrugged and moved ahead of them, breaking into a run. I was left alone with the increasing mire of my own thoughts.

Every single one of these dreams were just shoving more and more thoughts into my head, and I was starting to, terrifyingly, find it harder to recognize which were originally my own and which were from filling Sasuke's role in them. That wasn't normal, was it? Or was I wrong? Until this started, I had never had these many lucid dreams in a row, much less with them mostly running one from the other. I had normal dreams where just 'knowing' things happened, but for these… I didn't know. Not when they were refusing to fade away. I forcibly shoved it all down, instead trying to think about anything else. My thesis. The book my advisor suggested looking into. Trying to remember if I had all of the ingredients for dinner tomorrow.

At least I was able to admire the trees and occasional fields. Everything was the sort of vibrant green color that came from regular rain before summer hit, not the sort of constant patchy greens and browns I was used to. It made me realize that the last time I had gone anywhere this remotely green had been over two years ago. Spring break was coming up, and I suddenly felt tempted by the idea of spending it out of town.

I dismissed it for something I actually should think about, and was lost completely in thought over my thesis for when I realized Naruto had run up next to me, but only after tapping my shoulder. "Sasuke! Kakashi-sensei says we're going to stop to eat soon. There's a village up ahead."

 _Time to stop running,_ said one of those invading thoughts. I shoved it to the side, and managed to grumble something out loud to reply to Naruto as I slowed down, until the two of us were walking next to Sakura and Kakashi again.

"Why are we stopping this early? Won't it take longer for us to get back?" Sakura asked. Her tone was fairly neutral, especially compared to the usual frustration she had from talking with Kakashi for too long.

"If we keep going at the speed we were earlier, we would arrive in the middle of the night and you all would be worn out," Kakashi answered. "I'm not interested in dealing with that while we get checked in by the gate guards. We're still going to make good time. There's no reason to run the whole way back."

It occurred to me that the series had never really gone that into how long this trip had taken— at least the anime hadn't. Or if it had, it had glossed it over entirely. It made more sense that Wave would be farther away than just a day's trip, especially with escorting an older man like Tazuna, if Fire was supposed to be as large as it was.

"I was also asked to stop here on the way back." Kakashi sounded disgruntled over this part, but resigned. Was it to do with the fact he had been running for messages during the whole mission? That was the only thing I could think of. "You three should take advantage of it to eat lunch and relax before we start running again."

We came up to a fork in the road, and Kakashi guided us down one path, ignoring Naruto's questions all the while. It wasn't long at all until the village in question came properly into view, when before it had been partially shielded at the angle we were coming from by the trees.

The village ahead wasn't tiny, but it was still on the small side, since even from here we could make out where it started and ended. The only things that really stood out were a bathouse that seemed too large for the population of a village like this on the main road and a traditional-looking inn that was slightly set off apart from the rest of the village further ahead. The fact it had both of those things was at odds with how small it was, until I realized something. The road stretched further into the distance from here, heading north. The village was benefitting from being near a crossroads. Of course it'd have more than enough travellers to support things like that against its actual population.

While Sakura and Naruto seemed happy enough over even a short break, now that he had given the reason, Kakashi was just slowly slumping over more and more, especially once we were actually we were past the buildings on its outskirts.

As we took in our surroundings, Sakura's expression suddenly changed into one of pure rage.

"Huh?" Naruto looked at Sakura cautiously, before he apparently saw whatever it was, and started to look indignant as well.

I looked in the direction that had caught their ire, and groaned.

A figure was scaling the side wall of the bath house. I would have cared far less if it weren't for the fact that even from this far away, it was impossible to deny who it was, between the long ponytail of spikey white hair and the large scroll nestled in the small of his back.

A glance at Kakashi showed he had seen and identified the man as well. Somehow, he didn't look as disgruntled as he had before.

Sakura was still staring in anger. "What sort of pervert is that shameless?"

"The sort that I think is the contact I'm supposed to speak to here," Kakashi answered, as he started to walk down a side alley between two buildings, presumably for a more indirect approach.

" _That guy_?!" Naruto looked shocked. "You have to talk to a weird pervert like that? I mean, I _guess_ it makes sense considering..." He looked at Kakashi, with a meaningful expression on his face.

Kakashi ignored Naruto's comment entirely. I couldn't blame him. I would have too, except for the fact I would never read anything remotely smutty in public. Even the novels I had to read for school or college if they approached being remotely risque I would put them down immediately out of sheer embarrassment. I just didn't have the bandwidth for that sort of lack of shame.

It wasn't long at all until we reached the back end of the bathhouse. By now, he was on the roof, leaning over it and looking into the walled-in open-air baths.

I wasn't the only one unimpressed by this.

"HEY! YOU PERVERT! YOU SHOULDN'T BE SPYING ON PEOPLE BATHING!" Sakura shouted.

Screams and shouts of rage, anger, and embarrassment started up from beyond the wall, and Kakashi pinched his nose as he sighed.

Jiraiya looked up in alarm before he spied us, and fled the roof— by jumping off of it and landing in front of us with his hands splayed. It would have been very dramatic, if his expression didn't immediately change from a wide grin to a crushed one from the generally unimpressed looks on our faces. Sakura had her arms crossed over her chest and Naruto's eyes were narrowed in suspicion and disapproval.

Naruto turned, and tugged on Kakashi's sleeve. "Sensei, do you _really_ have to talk to this weirdo pervert?" he stage-whispered.

It was loud enough for Jiraiya to hear, and he slumped over with a groan, before he straightened up, jabbing his hand in Naruto's direction. "Look here, brat! I'm the holy hermit of—"

Kakashi sighed again, barely audible as Jiraiya spoke, and he cut the other man off. "This is Jiraiya, the Toad Sage, and a member of the Sannin."

Sakura's eyebrows wrinkled together. "One of the Sannin is a pervert who peeks at naked women bathing?"

"Uh, who're the Sannin?"

Jiraiya's intended response to Sakura's comment turned into a huffed exhalation from surprise and shock. He glared at Naruto before turning his gaze on Kakashi. "Are you messing with me?"

Kakashi set his hand on Naruto's head, ruffling his hair, and steadfastly ignored the resulting protests and wriggling attempts to escape. "Naruto-kun doesn't know very much about history," Kakashi said, almost too mildly. "This is my genin team. Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Sasuke. Sakura-chan is the pink one," he added in a deadpan, as though it really needed to be said.

Jiraiya erupted into laughter, crossing his arms over his chest. It was enough that it made Sakura glare at him and Naruto look between him and Kakashi in confusion, presumably from trying to figure out _what_ the older man was laughing about, while still trying to get out of the jounin's grip on his head. I had taken a step back when the laughing started, and only realized when he met my eyes that both the wide-toothed grin and laugh weren't entirely meeting his eyes. He was observing all of us, and hiding it behind his laughter. Soon enough, he let it subside. "They finally landed you with a team after all, Kakashi-kun?"

Kakashi looked like he was trying his best to ignore the diminutive. "It looks like it." He finally released his hold on Naruto, who immediately stepped away to scowl at the two men. "You three go have lunch. I'll meet you all in—" he glanced at Jiraiya, who flashed fingers at him quickly enough I didn't quite catch them , "—two hours in front of the ryokan."

Feeling strangely unnerved, I reached over to grab onto Sakura and Naruto's wrists and dragged them off with me in the direction of the main road. Neither protested, thankfully; I assume they didn't want to wait around and see if anyone from the bathhouse was going to rush out. I wasn't sure what it was about Jiraiya's expression when his eyes had met mine, but I was unsettled enough that I wanted to get away from him as fast as I could. He hadn't just looked at me. It was like he had gone a step beyond that.

"I can't believe someone that perverted is one of the _Sannin_ ," Sakura grumbled. To my consternation, she managed to get out of my hold and tried to slip her hand into mine. I let go of Naruto's arm and shoved my hands into my pockets in response, steadfastly ignoring the look of dismay I got for it.

"He can't be _that_ important," Naruto said, scoffing. He stretched his arms back, cradling his head between his fingers as he looked up and down the road. "They've got to have a ramen stand here, right?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "He's a _war hero_. The Sannin were all the Hokage's students."

"Oh, that's why he's a pervert, then," Naruto decided, nodding to himself. "Hey, I think I see a stand over there…" He began to walk off.

Sakura eyed Naruto, mouth pursed as she looked at him dubiously. "What does that— wait, I'm not even going to ask, I don't want to know. And we're not having ramen!" She reached and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him back before he could go any further and make the decision that way.

He grinned at her, sheepishly. "I don't hear _you_ coming up with any ideas."

I tuned their squabbling out as I looked around myself.

The road going through the village was relatively busy, for midday. There were some who were clearly travellers actively stopping through to eat or rest, still wearing backpacks or clothes dusty from time on the dirt roads here. It was supposed to be a waypoint, and a popular one.

It occurred to me that I should have no idea what the small row of food stalls— _yatai_ , something insisted— ahead were offering and yet, I did. The only one I _knew_ I had known for sure before was the ramen stand. I looked away, biting the inside of one cheek, half in thought and frustration. I immediately stopped from the unexpected pain. It was still tender and even somewhat raw from biting on it from before, trying to see if the pain and blood from that would wake me up. This, like all of the other dreams I had this past week, was absolute bullshit.

Those weren't the only places we could eat, and at this point I would refuse any of them.

Instead, I looked at the restaurants that had entrances with real doors, before I decided to point at one at mostly random.

"Why not there?" I spoke up, interrupting the two of them.

Sakura and Naruto looked over at me in surprise, before they turned to see where I was pointing.

"A yakiniku place?" Sakura looked thoughtful. "That'll be more expensive, but it isn't like we've really spent that much money out here... Even with how expensive rice and vegetables were in Wave, it wasn't that bad compared to if we ate out all the time..."

I turned to look in the direction I had pointed in. By sheer chance, I had managed to pick the most expensive option of the options. Again, I felt some annoyance at that I knew it, despite the fact that I shouldn't have; even the knowledge that this was a sensible thing to come to the conclusion of from it being a barbeque place didn't particularly help me there.

Naruto made a mixed expression. "But why not ramen? It's cheap!"

"You can't live off of cheap food forever," I pointed out.

Sakura's eyes gleamed with a sudden idea. "If we get ramen here, we're not getting it in Konoha the next time we get lunch."

"What! No way, some random stall isn't going to hold up to Ichiraku's." Naruto tried to give the two of us puppy eyes. "How can you guys make me choose like this?"

"It's easy," Sakura said. "Since you always pick ramen. I'm with Sasuke-kun; barbecue actually sounds great right now." It looked like she was decisively the tiebreaker, and she began to already walk across the road.

I started to walk, sparing a glance at him. Naruto's shoulders slumped in defeat, but he pulled out his wallet, and gave it a sad pat. It looked a little deflated, but not so bad that he should be making dramatics over it. "I'm sorry, Gama-chan... I'll make sure you get fed soon."

Sakura stopped and looked back over her shoulder when she realized she was left waiting by the restaurant door. "Naruto! Finish up with being stingy already!"

He pouted, but jogged over, and we went in.

We ended up at a table in a corner of the restaurant. Naruto slung himself into the seat across from me. Sakura looked between the two of us for a moment, before finally sitting next to Naruto.

I idly listened to their chatter and occasional attempts to draw me into their conversation.

When the server brought the platters of raw meat and vegetables over, my stomach suddenly recoiled at the sight of it.

It refused to calm down even as Naruto reached over Sakura despite her protests and started to drop a few thin slices onto the grill itself.

I shoved myself up and away from the table, managing a muttered "Back later" before I rushed off, finding the restrooms just barely in time to shove the door of the tiny room close and retch into the sink.

I looked up at the mirror while I let the water run to wash it all down the drain.

The face staring dully back at me looked awful. Twelve year olds weren't supposed to look this tired, even _if_ it reflected how tired I felt from spending so long trying to fall asleep. As pale as I remembered Sasuke looking in the mirror a few dreams ago, this was a different kind of pallor, a shade or two lighter and almost sickly under this light.

I splashed the face reflected back at me with water to try and look less awful. It didn't work. Giving up with a sigh, I wiped it dry and left the bathroom.

Naruto was standing outside, looking worried— and then momentarily surprised. "Hey! Sasuke, you uh, went into the women's restroom by mistake, y'know? Are you feeling alright?"

I managed to grunt in his direction, heading back for the table. He followed after me, silently.

Sakura gave me a concerned look when we got back, moving to let Naruto back in. She had kept the meat he had placed on the grill from burning; it was already on the dish in front of him. "Are you okay?" Her eyes darted to look down at the table instead of meeting mine. "You've been quieter than usual, since..." she trailed off.

"I'm fine," I insisted. "It's just a dream..."

She looked unconvinced, if sympathetic. "You should talk to Kakashi-sensei if you aren't sleeping well. He might be useless at times, but he has to have _some_ ideas for helping there, since he's a jounin…"

I laughed bitterly.

They looked at each other, unsure what to say or do in response. Sakura finally ended the moment by dropping slices of eggplant on the grill top. "Let's eat."

We ate in silence. I didn't touch the meat.

Everything was tasteless, anyways.

While they were finishing up, I slipped away with the receipt while the other two were distracted. I was already at the register with my— no, _Sasuke's—_ wallet out and paying for everyone when Sakura and Naruto caught up. Sakura didn't seem sure on what to say, if anything.

When Naruto saw what I was doing, he turned red, one side of his mouth puckering in.

"Wha— hey!" he protested.

It was already too late; the older woman at the till was giving me the change. I put the coins in the wallet, flipping it around a moment to give it a look and before I put it back where it belonged. It was a nice dark blue color that _I_ actually liked, altered to have a uchiwa emblem embroidered in red and white on one side. I probably appreciated it more than I would have otherwise just on the basis that it wasn't shaped like an animal like Naruto's.

I looked at them again wordlessly before I slipped out the door and into the street.

Naruto followed right after, and nearly barreled into me, before he stopped himself. His fists were clenched, and his face was still flushed. "What's the big idea? I could have paid for myself! Sakura too!" Sakura entered the street just after this, pausing just in front of the door.

It was because of the money. Even though he had been talking to his wallet, he had either realized or noticed I had seen him do it.

"Then you can pay next time," I answered. "It was just easier to do like this. We still need to meet Kakashi soon, don't we?" I was trying to deescalate an argument with a twelve year old anime character in one of the stupidest dreams I ever had. I had never done anything to deserve having such embarrassing dreams, much less as an adult.

He blinked in surprise, fingers loosening at his sides. "Huh? Uh, sure, I guess." Naruto rubbed the back of his neck, looking like he wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself anymore.

Sakura looked at me, unimpressed. "Fine, but I'm paying _after_ Naruto. And we're _both_ going to pick something similarly expensive so we're all even after this, okay? It would have been fine if you _asked_ instead of just going and doing it without us." Naruto's pride wasn't the only one I had squashed, then.

Naruto blanched at the idea, but didn't argue.

"Alright," I said, giving in.

"We don't need to go wait for Kakashi-sensei just yet," Sakura said, decisively, as she walked over. "We can probably look around for a bit before we do. I want to get _something_ as a memento for this trip."

"Why didn't you get anything in Wave?" Naruto asked.

"I couldn't afford anything," Sakura said, blushing lightly. "The prices for everything were ridiculous, probably because of Gato… Even a stationery set would have been a week's pay for us."

His jaw dropped in horror. "What?! But isn't that just fancy paper?"

"Apparently _too_ fancy."

Naruto was the one who found a small storefront that had a stationery set cute enough by Sakura's standards. In the same shop, he managed to find a pen with a toad-themed cap, and after some obvious deliberation, decided to buy it. I wound up shamed— how, I wasn't entirely sure— into getting something as well: a thin notebook with a pine forest theme on the front.

Sakura carried everything in a small bag from the shop, looking pleased with herself. While we waited for Kakashi, she separated the goods, carefully putting the stationery set into her bag. I barely managed to shove the notebook into mine, and Naruto didn't even bother to open his to cram the pen in.

Eventually he and Jiraiya came into sight, and began to walk over to us. Again, I felt a vague unease. He was looking at me again, specifically, and at one point I locked eyes with him. It was only once he was closer that his gaze shifted, and he grinned freely, like it had never happened at all.

Being disturbed like this by a character like him who was supposed to be lighthearted didn't make me feel any better about these dreams continuing.

"Hey, Sensei, is the pervert coming with us, too?" Naruto asked. It was loud enough to attract the disapproving attention of other people on the road.

Jiraiya made a face at him. "I'm not going to Konoha, but we'll be travelling in the same direction for awhile. You should feel privileged!"

Judging from Kakashi, Sakura, and Naruto's expressions, we were four for four for not feeling privileged by this.

Sakura looked at Kakashi, skeptically. "You agreed to this?"

Kakashi was already in the middle of beginning a slow decline into a deeper slouch than usual. "That seems to imply I had a choice." Jiraiya clapped him on the shoulder, hard enough that it was not just loud, but shocked Kakashi back into standing straight once more. He glared at the older man in return.

"You're still a stick in the mud like you were as a brat, huh?" Jiraiya asked.

Naruto looked between the two men. "You knew him as a kid?"

"Yes," went Jiraiya, at the same time that Kakashi went "Not really." Kakashi directed his single visible eye at Jiraiya, before he turned back towards us.

"We'll be going at a run from here for now. All of you have the stamina by now that it shouldn't be a problem, but if it is, let me know. Don't just fall out," he told us. I wondered what had changed his mind from before. "I'll let you know when we'll stop to rest. We should arrive in Konoha before noon tomorrow, as long as there aren't any surprise storms."

"There shouldn't be any from here going west," Jiraiya added idly. "I haven't heard anything."

"Good to know," Kakashi managed to say. He really didn't seem pleased that Jiraiya had decided to tag along, but said nothing more as he led us back to the road we would be taking towards Konoha.

It wasn't until we were out of sight of the village that he gave the order to start running.

Naruto tried to speed ahead to take point. But before he could get too far away, he was called back. "We don't need you to do that right now, Naruto," Kakashi told him.

Naruto slowed down, turning to look at Kakashi with confusion, before he was once again keeping pace with the rest of us. "What? Why?"

Jiraiya laughed. "This is as safe as it gets, brat! It's good practice, but you're better off close by, at least until we part ways!"

He was willing to be annoyingly chatty, it turned out. I managed to tune him out, at least most of it. It was harder to stay distracted when Naruto, and then Sakura, began to interrupt his commentary and little stories to ask questions, which he usually readily answered or laughed off entirely. The poor first impression he had made on them didn't get a chance to stick.

I didn't ask any, even when I was tempted.

Eventually, the shadows started to deepen and the color of the sky changed as it approached evening, and before the sun fully set we came to another crossroads. It was here we slowed down, coming to a complete stop.

"I'm heading north from here," Jiraiya said, as he pulled a scroll out. He offered it to Kakashi, who slipped it into one of his flak jacket's pockets. He tilted his head towards us lightly while he looked at Kakashi. "Think about what I said."

"I'll keep it in mind," Kakashi answered, though it sounded more unenthusiastic than he usually did.

Naruto looked up at Jiraiya, squinting for a moment in thought, before he spoke up. "Are you ever gonna visit the village anytime soon?"

Jiraiya took a step back, looking surprised at the earnest question. "I haven't stepped foot inside Konoha for a long time at this point," he responded, rubbing the back of his neck. "I have a lot to do and places to go, you see? I'll… think about it."

"Yeah!" Naruto grinned, apparently taking this as a win.

Jirai'as eyes landed on me again. Unexpectedly— since I hadn't said _anything_ to him at all— he spoke to me. "Think about writing it down. Sometimes it helps."

I could only look at him in confusion, before I looked away. I didn't know how to react to unexpected vague therapy advice coming from _him_ , of all options.

"I'm going to… get going now. Good luck with everything," Jiraiya fake-coughed into his arm, and turned, and walked off.

"Bye, Ero-Sennin!" Naruto yelled, waving, disregarding the fact that the man wouldn't be able to see it.

Jiraiya stopped, his head ducking for a moment before he turned around to glower and shout. "DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

Naruto laughed.

Jiraiya grimaced, before snorting and turning around once more, raising an arm up in farewell. As he walked off into the darkening evening, he started to sing loudly, just slightly off-tune.

We could still hear it as we started to run again, well after he was out of sight.

It was fully night and had been for awhile, the moon long having passed beneath the treeline, when Kakashi finally stopped us to rest. We ended up setting up camp out of sight of the road, and decided who would have what watch. While establishing a campsite was something I actually knew how to do, I still felt mixed over it. The last time I had gone camping was on a weekend trip in my junior year of college. A few years ago, by now.

Like the last dream, trying to sleep resulted in fleeting nothingness. Sakura sleepily woke me up to take my turn, and I spent those hours staring at the stars before I shook Naruto awake, and passed out to nothing again.

Breakfast was unappealing ration bars, before we started running again.

Since Jiraiya's departure, there had barely been any conversation. Something about Kakashi's attitude had left the other two silent, and reluctant to chatter.

The sun wasn't quite at the midpoint of the day when the village walls loomed in sight ahead, and Naruto wordlessly cheered.

"Finally," Sakura said, with a sigh of relief. "I'm ready for a real bath."

Naruto nodded in agreement. "I'm excited for my bed, and Ichiraku's."

"You aren't dismissed just yet," Kakashi said. "We're still outside of the gates. I'll let you all go once we're past the guards, but I want to make a few things clear before that."

"Huh? Like what?" Naruto looked up at him. "Is it because of how the mission went?"

"Yes," Kakashi said, with a sigh. "I'll debrief everyone tomorrow, but in the meantime, don't tell anyone about what happened on the mission. We'll be giving the Hokage an oral report tomorrow before we begin on the written one. He'll decide what its new classification is, but you should probably assume that it's going to be high enough that talking about anything that happened on it will get you in serious trouble, do you understand?"

Naruto squinted. "Is it because of Zabuza and Haku? Or..." He trailed off, glancing at me.

"All of that, yes. I mean it." He actually sounded serious.

Naruto swallowed. "Got it."

"That goes for you too, Sakura."

"What?" she protested. "But I wouldn't say anything!"

"Your involvement," he clarified.

Sakura's eyes darted to look at the ground for a moment, and she gripped one of the straps of her bag. "Oh, yeah."

It wasn't until we were cleared to enter the village and all on our separate ways that I realized that since this dream had started, Kakashi had barely said or directed anything at me. At 'Sasuke'.

I let the weird and unwanted subconscious knowledge vaguely guide me to Sasuke's apartment, taking a longer route. I ended up cutting across the edge of a small training field, and paused momentarily to look. Team Ten were practicing within its grounds, and both Shikamaru and Choji were fighting against Asuma in hand, Ino on the other side of the field, but still not that far. Gauging from Asuma's expression, he wasn't that impressed or happy.

"Hey! Ino! Hurry up already!" Shikamaru shouted. He sounded annoyed.

"Ugh! Fine!"

I got a brief glance at her arms held out, fingers pressed together for a seal. She made a surprised sound when she realized I was nearby, briefly turning to look. I stared in momentary alarm before I decided I was probably safe since they were mid-practice, and began to walk again, picking up my pace.

I was still in close enough range to hear Shikamaru shout again. "Ino! I can't believe she missed again…"

* * *

Ino opened her eyes to a dark room, confusion, and pain. _Did I get the jutsu wrong again?_ _I thought I thought I had it for sure this time! If only I didn't let myself get distracted by Sasuke!_ She sat up, frowning, even as a pang of pain radiated out from one shoulder. _Ugh. Did I fall wrong?_ Even in the darkness, she could tell this wasn't her room, and it didn't look like a hospital room, either. Cautiously, the young kunoichi looked around. A modern digital alarm clock provided just enough dim lighting that she could tell there was a lamp next to it, which she fumbled with for a moment before she found and turned its switch. There was a pair of glasses resting next to the alarm clock.

But the big issue was that her skin was way too dark to be hers. "What—" She cut herself off almost immediately in shock. That wasn't her voice. The mind body switch technique worked then, but who was this? She stood up and away from the bed, almost losing her balance when one of the knees of whoever this was nearly gave out on her.

"Ugh, great." Her own sense of curiosity was too strong to resist, though. Waking up in a mysterious body was too strange to not figure out. Looking around blurrily, before she grabbed the glasses and put them on showed that the bedroom was all part of the new modern style that was slowly becoming popular in Konoha. A full raised bed and mattress with sheets and bedding in a dark blue, with matching nightstands and a large dresser. She passed a hand over the bedding, finding herself somewhat surprised at the slightly slippery feel of the fabric. _So weird._

There was even carpeting in the room, rather than rugs. The closet got a "tsk" from her. Outside of a few brighter jewel-toned blouses that worked with this skin tone, everything was boring, in somber or neutral colors. Dark blue, black, or white, with one cream-colored abomination that looked like it was hidden on purpose. Besides being surprisingly soft to the touch, nearly everything in there was so thin and flimsy she couldn't imagine wearing them herself. They'd tear way too easily for just a regular day's work and training even as a genin. "Ugh… Whoever this is, she's _really_ not into fashion, is she? She doesn't even have a mirror in here!" she said out loud.

"And these clothes are so plain. Even her nightwear is boring!" Ino looked down at the blue t-shirt and black capri leggings she was currently in. The t-shirt was at least thicker than what was in the closet, but it was still thinner than any she had seen in Konoha, and definitely wasn't ninja-grade.The leggings were actually worse, since they already had a tear at the bad knee from the fabric just giving out. "No weapons anywhere in here, either, so this has to be some civilian." Another throb of pain wracked the body she was borrowing. "And a wrecked one, too."

She pulled open the bedroom door, coming into a tiled hallway. Snooping around, the two doors further down the tiny hallway opened into an office and a bathroom, before leading into the rest of the living space. The bathroom took priority, and Ino immediately flipped on the lights so that she could look at the mirror.

Even though she couldn't say she knew what every civilian in Konoha looked like, the face staring her back in the mirror didn't look like anyone she'd ever seen in the village. Black bangs framed the sides of a woman's face, the rest of her hair falling past the shoulders in a mix of thick waves and some curls that lifted in unruly licks from sleep. The arched eyebrows showed signs of being groomed, but not too much. Beneath them were dark almond shaped eyes that were bridged by a nose that Ino felt was too strong for a woman's face. It was only slightly balanced by full lips, strong high cheekbones, and a somewhat pointed chin. With those features and the olive skin, this woman would stick out like a sore thumb, even in her boring clothes.

While there were some families who had darker skin, especially if they were regularly outside in physical labor, the woman whose body she was controlling didn't show any signs of being a laborer or even an outside person. Most of the tops she saw in the closet were long sleeved, and there weren't any obvious tan lines. This woman was just naturally browner than most people in Konoha, but not like anyone from Cloud.

"She's so _old_ ," Ino said, making a face. "She's got to be like Asuma-sensei's age." She sighed, before she looked around the bathroom. "Weird bathroom…" she muttered.

The countertop the sink was in was taken up by face products, and a small hanging basket suctioned to the mirror held expensive looking electric-powered hair tools. A cursory look made it clear that everything came from brands she had never heard of.

Ino swept out of the bathroom and poked her head into the office. Like the bedroom, the desk and chair were modern, with a full to bursting bookshelf but… "No way. Is that a laptop computer? It's so sleek looking!" She sat in the chair and opened it. After a moment of poking around, she finally found the power button, and pressed it. To her disappointment, when the surprisingly vibrant picture on the screen popped up and prompted a log in for an 'SU', it was password protected. She sighed. The stack of books on the desk were weird, too. They were all hefty and serious looking titles she had never seen before, all in yokogaki, spine on the left side.

She walked out and headed into the rest of the mystery home, switching on light switches as she saw them. The kitchen was strangely set up, with so many things taking up counter space and a full oven under the range. The modern style dining table and chairs right next to it were unimpressive just because they were downright normal in comparison.

The main living area was what made her borrowed jaw drop. "There's no way that's a television!" It was so big and _flat._ The bulky looking sofas— both in tasteless, boring brown— didn't merit any particular attention. "No knobs or buttons… Maybe there's a remote?"

Looking around, she soon found one, and after testing some buttons, she figured out the one to turn the TV on.

The screen bloomed into white and grey, with a colorful banner at the bottom that showed different squares that looked like movie posters, with different categories. One section, titled 'Continue Watching', caught her attention.

"What the— is that supposed to be _Naruto_?"

Hesitantly, and after figuring out what buttons did what…

She hit play.

* * *

I woke up, and fear gripped me as I took in my surroundings. I was on the living room couch.

I hadn't fallen asleep here.

The TV was on, the screen mostly dark with the exception of the text asking if I was still watching Naruto.

I didn't remember doing this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was very nearly named "A Plot Twist That We Didn't See Coming" for some odd reason.
> 
> Come [join me on discord](https://discord.gg/xZrqJC6) to talk writing and do group word sprints. It helped me get a bit ahead of schedule with this chapter, and I'm planning to do plenty of sprints for NaNoWriMo.


	8. Nothing Gives Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to the ever lovely Tavina and moderately bruised Okita3_Daishouri for beta-reading.

I opened my eyes to the ceiling above Sasuke's bed. I had fallen asleep only to wake up as _him_. Not even segueing _into_ anything happening. I rolled over and screamed into the mattress until I could feel my— _his_ — throat start to feel ragged and hoarse. _Am I going insane?_

Nothing about this was fair. I had fallen asleep early, exhausted. I hadn't _remembered_ waking up and heading to the couch yesterday night, or watching more of the stupid, stupid anime, but apparently I had, bingeing through enough episodes to get a decent amount into the Chuunin Exams arc. I had stopped watching that first night midway through Wave, before all these dreams started and hadn't touched them since. By now it was over a week since it started.

After a while, I sat up, resigning myself to taking everything in. Going from the light streaming through the window, it was mid-morning. Somehow I knew that Team Seven was supposed to meet up this afternoon, with no 'morning' training, even though Kakashi rarely showed up that long before noon. _Great, I can spend that extra time feeling sorry for myself_.

I rolled out of bed, half-guiltily enjoying the fact that outside of _actually_ getting hurt in these dreams, I didn't feel any of my usual chronic pain at all. No need to be careful with which leg I set down first, what hand I used to grab something heavy, or how to sit and stand to avoid aggravating my shoulder or knee. It was only half because it also annoyed me— no, _scared_ me.

I let habit take over, making the bed and pulling clothes out from the wardrobe with some dismay. He really didn't have that much of a variety, mostly the same kind of wide high collared shirt in dark blues or black, though that was probably due to my own imagination being limited on what he _would_ wear. The one piece outfit I remembered for the Chuunin Exams arc was also in there, carefully folded. That was new.

It was still slightly more varied than I knew some real guys wore, if not by much.

I ended up picking one of the black shirts, and changed as quickly as I could, fiddling with the clasps on the arm warmers. I eyed the rest— the leg wraps and kunai— with some ambivalence, before I sighed and got that over with as well.

I left the apartment, after grabbing Sasuke's gear bag, at a loss for what else to do.

In the end, I decided to wander the village. By complete chance, after almost a full walk that had me returning in the direction of my— _Sasuke's_ — apartment I ran into Team Eight, absent Kurenai, in the middle of eating near a cluster of ground-floor eateries with outdoor seating.

I really didn't have the opportunity to decide whether to ignore them or not, because Kiba stood up on his chair, and waved at me with both arms, before finally shouting to get my attention with a laugh. "HEY! Uchiha! Where's ramen-for-brains? Shouldn't you be with your team?" Nestled in his jacket, Akamaru barked along with him.

For lack of anything better to do, along with the fact he was probably going to keep this up if I tried to move on, I walked over.

He got yanked down by Shino and Hinata before he could say or do anything else. Hinata looked flushed with embarrassment because of the attention Kiba had attracted when she looked around. Shino just looked inscrutable. Akamaru, on the other hand, took his cue from his partner when it came to the use of distractions, and the dog jumped out and onto the table, stealing a skewer of kushiyaki from Kiba's plate before hopping off and hiding under Hinata's chair to eat it.

Kiba stopped laughing, diving off his chair, going after his ninken partner. "Hey! Hana says you aren't supposed to have any of that! She already chewed us out the last time you got into sugary stuff!"

Hinata quickly sat up from her chair, avoiding being jostled off of it when Kiba bumped his head on the underside of the seat with excellent timing.

I decided to pretend the dog versus boy scuffle on the ground wasn't happening. So far, Akamaru looked like he was winning. "We have the morning off," I said, directing my answer to Shino and Hinata instead. "We aren't supposed to meet up until the afternoon."

"Interesting. Kurenai-sensei gave us the morning off as well," Shino commented, thoughtfully.

"Sasuke-kun, I heard your team was on its first C-rank outside of the village?" Hinata started. Though it was phrased as a question, she didn't stop there. "How was it? Did everything go alright?"

I suddenly had the feeling that all of Shino's attention was focused on me, despite the sunglasses and high coat collar. "How did you get a C-rank so fast?"

"Naruto happened," I said, feeling more pressured than I expected or even thought possible under the circumstances. "It turns out the Hokage will give in if there's enough pressure, even if it's from a genin." After saying that, I had the sudden feeling I had just given out some terrible information. Middle school aged kids didn't need the knowledge that even unrelated adults in positions of power were susceptible to being pressured into giving in if they didn't know it already. I tried to reassure myself that this was fine.

"Naruto-kun convinced the Sandaime?" Hinata asked. She lightly blushed.

"Yeah," I answered. I had the feeling that while I was getting away with not answering her questions for _now_ , it wasn't going to last— especially not with Shino standing right there. At the same time, in spite of wondering how it would turn out, I didn't feel like spilling the secrets around the Wave mission. "The mission was just escort and guard work. If we weren't doing that, it was training," I ended up going with. It wasn't wrong, and it didn't touch on the fact it had been reclassified at all. "We learned how to walk up trees."

Hinata visibly relaxed; I hadn't even noticed that she had been tense in the first place. "Oh, that's good. I thought I had heard..." Her voice went quiet, and she trailed off, looking away.

I didn't have the chance to ask what she had heard, because there was a thump and a swear as Kiba smashed his head against the underside of the table, before he bounded back up to stand again, holding Akamaru against his chest with one arm, and a now-chewed and meatless wooden skewer in his free hand. The dog looked as smug as was possible for a dog to be. Kiba set the skewer on the table, pouting. "If you have diarrhea inside the house again, forget about Hana, _Kaa-chan's_ gonna kill me."

Akamaru barked.

"It's not _my_ fault!" Kiba protested. He must have noticed my staring, because he turned and looked at me reproachfully. "Don't judge me."

"You're the one who got outsmarted by a dog," I pointed out, before deciding to ignore him. I returned my attention to Hinata. "What were you saying?"

She looked surprised."Oh, um, it doesn't matter, really," she answered.

Kiba rolled his eyes.

"Yes it does," I said. "You must have heard about it from somewhere. Unless you're the kind of person who makes things up?"

Hinata blinked in surprise, looking unsure. It was a bit mean of me to box her in like this. "N-no…"

"I thought so," I said, sounding more confident than I felt with Kiba and Shino staring at me. Even the dog was giving me a dirty look, now. "What did you hear?"

"I…" she faltered, before restarting. "My cousin mentioned that your team went on a month-long C-rank, when he asked why we didn't have one yet…"

"Your cousin's an _ass_ ," Kiba said, loudly. "You heard Sasuke, the only reason they even got one was because of Naruto. "

Hinata looked uncomfortable, possibly of Kiba's declaration— even _though_ it wasn't wrong— but continued on, pressing her fingertips together nervously. "He, um… _His_ jounin-sensei gave them the morning off today, too. Otou-san and all of the jounin in the clan left early this morning…" I was wrong, then.

Shino shifted on his feet, glancing around, before speaking. "Tou-san was already gone when I left this morning…"

The grin slid off of Kiba's face as he looked around our surroundings.

I felt a distinct sense of unease, one I couldn't place. That couldn't be for the chuunin exams, could it? I looked over at Shino, who looked back at me.

"I think it would be wise if we stopped talking about this," Shino said, slowly and gravely, coming to the same conclusion as me. "Enjoy the rest of your morning, Sasuke."

It was as clear a dismissal as they came. I nodded at him. "You too."

I walked away. As I did, I noticed that the streets were slightly emptier than they should be. The knowledge hung over my head, dangerous. I didn't want to acknowledge it, and yet… It was hard to not, now that I let it sneak in.

I let myself drift, and eventually wound up near the training grounds that my head knew were the ones we were using lately. In spite of the fact that it was too early for meeting up— a couple hours ahead of the dictated time, which meant it would only be even longer before Kakashi would show his mask— Sakura was already there, sitting in one of the taller trees that was part of a small copse straddling the path that served as a boundary between this one and the one on the other side. Her pink gear bag rested at the foot of the trunk.

"Sasuke-kun!" she called.

I looked up. She was waving to help get my attention— even though she really didn't need to, sticking out like she did with all of the leaves behind her— and while normally Sakura looked happy to see me— _I don't need to know that, why do I?—_ today she didn't.

I joined her in the tree after dropping my bag next to hers.

"Ino stopped by my house to tell me there was something going on," Sakura started, awkwardly, as I sat down on the branch. "She said she saw you talking to Team Eight, on the way."

"Did she?" I hadn't seen her. I was fine with not having to deal with another girl with a crush on a one on one basis. Hopefully she hadn't taken up _stalking_ , but I guess she had moved on.

"Mmhm," Sakura nodded. "I haven't spoken to her since we all graduated. I didn't think we were ever going to talk again." That was some middle school hyperbole, but I could tell what she actually meant. The thought of losing a friend over something as dumb as a boy eventually stung, if it didn't in the first place. She swung her legs, looking down at them and the ground below.

"Hinata said all of the jounin in her clan left together for somewhere this morning," I said finally. "Shino's dad, too."

After a while, Sakura wrapped her arms around herself, and turned to look at me. "I think we really messed things up," she said, biting on her bottom lip.

We sat in uncomfortable silence, and it stayed that way until we could make out Naruto running this way. Even from this distance, I could tell he had his backpack with him, and it was bouncing on his shoulders with each step he took.

Sakura stood up, trying to get a better look. "Why is he running?"

I shrugged.

Eventually, we could tell that he was shouting and waving at us. Whatever it was, it was unintelligible from his flailing and how far away he was.

"We can't tell what you're trying to say, Naruto!" Sakura shouted, once he was closer.

Naruto stopped running to laugh at himself, self-conscious. From there, he ambled to the tree, and dropped his bag next to Sakura's before he walked up it.

"There's stuff happening," he announced, as he dropped into a sitting position, next to me.

Sakura leaned forward to look across at him. "What do you mean, 'stuff'?"

"I went up to the Hokage rock when I woke up, and there were a _bunch_ of people in the stadium," Naruto answered. "All lined up."

"What were you doing up there?" I asked.

Naruto ducked his head, as though he didn't want to entirely admit the reason, but answered anyway. "I like to go up there and think sometimes, yeah? I don't know what was happening," Naruto admitted, "but I don't think it's a good sign."

Sakura locked her eyes on the view ahead. "I think it's because of us," she said, softly.  
  
Naruto's eyes widened "What, like—-" he started loudly, before cutting himself off and looking around suddenly. "Because of the mission?" he asked. I didn't even know Naruto could actually _get_ that quiet, instead of it coming out as more of a faux-whisper.

"I think so," she whispered back. "Before we were reported to the Sandaime, he told us to let him take the lead. He only let us talk if it was something he wasn't there for."

"Yeah, the only thing he didn't lie about was, uh, about how many people Sasuke killed." It wasn't until after he said that that he realized he said that out loud, and gave me a look that was a combination of horror and embarrassment. I tried to ignore it, wiping my hands on my shorts.

Sakura's lip quivered, and tears actually started to well up, filling me with a sense of alarm. I barely managed to deal with people who were upset enough to cry when I was awake. I didn't deserve it in a dream, too, especially when it was a crying _teenager_. "Do you think he's in trouble because of _me_?"

"Uh—" Naruto began, but before he could say anything, I pressed my hand against his mouth, ignoring his muffled protests.

"If he is, he's the one who made that decision," I answered. Naruto licked the palm of my hand, and I was unable to resist making a face of disgust as I pulled it away. I aimed a light kick at Naruto's closest ankle before I wiped his saliva off on his jacket. "He didn't _have_ to."

"He said his priorities were to keep up safe and to train us to make chuunin," Sakura said, sounding stricken. The tears were beginning to make their way down her cheeks, in fat drops and splotches. "Did he throw his career away on _me_?"

Considering that in the series, Kakashi didn't get in trouble for how Wave turned out— or at least enough for it to matter— I doubted it. At this point, I decided my brain was just doing its best to fill in what could have happened after Wave and before the exam arc started. "Someone like him? No." I briefly tried to imagine Kakashi the way he was in this dream and in most of the story as a missing-nin. The idea fizzled immediately.

"Yeah," Naruto agreed, nodding. "And he's famous, right? Zabuza was all 'I know all about you from my handbook', and Haku said Zabuza left _years_ back, yeah? There's no way _every_ jounin from a village is well known enough for that kinda thing. There's too many of them! So since he's probably still been doing missions and stuff, it's not like the Hokage can just throw him into the trash, right?"

The actual answer to that was actually that yes, he could, and there were even plenty of characters who he had done just that to or let it happen to, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. That wouldn't solve the problem of dealing with a crying girl, it'd just make it _worse_.

Sakura sniffled. "I hope you're right."

Naruto did his best to give her a grin. "If _both_ of us are agreeing, it's gotta be, yeah? Believe it."

She gave him a watery smile. "Yeah." While not great, at least she was no longer crying.

We stayed in the tree, quietly hiding from everything else, until it was about time for when training was _supposed_ to begin.

In spite of the fact that there was really no sign that he was going to show up on time— especially with what we were guessing was going on on top of his usual tendency towards tardiness— Sakura stood up, squaring her shoulders with determination, and dropped down from the tree first.

Naruto and I looked at each other, before he shrugged and followed suit, leaving me alone in the tree until I jumped down as well.

Sakura looked between us, clearly thinking about something, before she pointed a finger at Naruto. "I need to get better. We all do. Fight me."

"What?" Naruto's eyes widened. "Why me? Sasuke's the best at taijutsu."

"He's also the one better at making calls, since Sensei's not here," Sakura pointed out. "You get distracted the second you're bored."

"Yeah, you're right," Naruto admitted. He grimaced, not looking particularly excited about fighting Sakura, even with it being a friendly practice match. "I need to practice, anyway. Just taijutsu?"

She nodded.

Still not looking all that enthused about this idea, Naruto approached her. They looked at me expectantly.

Not exactly sure what they were expecting, I nodded, hoping it would be adequate enough.

They each brought a hand up in a two-fingered sign— the Seal of Confrontation— and shot off.

Their faults became obvious, very quickly, even to my relatively untrained eye.

Naruto's sloppy and broad movements broadcast every single punch and kick he tried to aim, along with the ones I eventually realized were him _trying_ to not hit Sakura after he _did_ land a hit.

Sakura, on the other hand, kept pulling away at the last second. While her _technique_ was fine… Her followthrough was completely ineffective. She was more likely to end up _getting_ hurt like this.

Watching this ineffectual back-and-forth with neither of them showing any evidence of either of them actually taking this seriously— in spite of Sakura's own declaration— was beginning to drive me nuts.

I finally lost it when Naruto purposefully threw a punch right past her and Sakura veered away from taking advantage.

"Will you two get over yourselves already!? Naruto, how are you supposed to become Hokage if you can't even hit a girl?" I shouted in frustration. I had no idea what sort of incentive would work for Sakura but… "Sakura! STOP MESSING AROUND AND KICK HIS ASS!"

Both of them stared at me in disbelief for a moment. Sakura's expression hardened, and Naruto had just enough time to process this radically new development with barely enough time to go on the defense.

Sakura had taken my words a bit too close to heart.

I couldn't really blame Naruto for being put on the backfoot; he was still busy processing her new aggressive approach. "I thought this was just supposed to be a spar!?"

Sakura's punches were beginning to show serious carry-through now, and while Naruto was actually doing his best to block them now, tightening up his defense— his blocks were now more precise, abandoning the sloppy movements of earlier— he had stopped returning attacks at all.

"SHANNARO!"

I watched as Sakura belted Naruto in the gut, dropping him.

"What a display of Youth!"

I turned to face the direction I heard _that_ come from.

Team Gai I had expected, hearing that. Kakashi ambling along next to Gai with his hands in his pockets, in his usual slouch, was not included in those expectations.

Sakura looked embarrassed, ducking her head to let her hair fall around her face. She offered Naruto a hand up, and they hooked their fingers together, formally ending the spar.

"Wow, Sakura, you really got me," Naruto said, wincing as he rubbed his stomach, before turning towards the newcomers. "Hey! Sensei! Who are these weirdos?"

Only one of the aforementioned 'weirdos' looked like they took serious offense at Naruto's lack of tact. Then again, it would have been hideously out of character for Neji to be anything except offended by a comment like that, at this point, I supposed.

Kakashi didn't look particularly shamed by Naruto's behavior. He lazily raised a hand in greeting. "This is Maito Gai and his genin team."

"So you're Kakashi's genin team! I can see why he must be proud of you!" Gai beamed.

I took a step back, towards Naruto and Sakura. There was a difference between reading or watching him be overwhelmingly optimistic and then experiencing it in some way or another. And in that sense, I felt that dreaming counted for this. At least half-way. I couldn't imagine being around real strangers who were this high energy and exuberant like this. Right now it was barely tolerable and only because Sakura and Naruto also looked dubious of him, though that was probably because of Gai's proclamation.

"Uh, thanks?" Naruto said, looking between Kakashi, Gai, and then us. He dropped his voice into an attempted whisper. "He really is a weirdo."

Sakura wasn't even trying to correct Naruto. "It's... nice to meet you, Gai-sensei?" She looked at Kakashi, clearly wondering why he had decided to inflict this on us, while trying to give Gai a polite smile.

Kakashi shrugged.

At least Team Gai— well, Tenten and Neji; Lee was looking on in admiration— looked embarrassed at having to witness this as well.

"I've known your sensei since before our academy days," Gai said. He jutted his thumb at himself and then Kakashi. "People consider us 'Eternal Rivals'."

"Only you say that," Kakashi said, almost immediately. "We're training with Gai's team today."

"Right now, we're perfectly tied. Forty-nine wins, forty-nine losses." Gai gripped one hand into a fist.

Sakura's smile started to grow desperate, and she turned towards the other genin. "I'm Haruno Sakura, it's nice to meet you all."

Tenten, at least, immediately caught on to the attempted change. "It's nice to meet you too, Sakura-chan. I'm Tenten." She lightly elbowed Neji, who was only looking more annoyed as time passed.

"Hyuuga Neji," he said, shortly.

Naruto squinted in Neji's direction. "Hey, are you related to Hinata? She was in our class."

Neji's demeanor managed to become stiffer than it already was. "We're clan members."

Tenten gave Neji a sidelong look, before sighing. "You're the kid who vandalized the Hokage Monument not too long ago, aren't you?"

Naruto grinned widely. "Yeah! I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and I'm going to become Hokage!"

Neji scoffed, but not loud enough to be actually heard over the "YOSH!" that erupted from Lee's mouth. "What a wonderful dream to have! My name is Rock Lee! I can't wait to see what you achieve!"

Gai clapped a hand on Lee's shoulder. "Lee! You're such an inspiration!"

"No, Gai-sensei, that's _you!"_

As they embraced each other, Kakashi idly spoke up. I didn't catch what he said; I was too busy staring at the free show.

"I'm so glad I was given the opportunity to train you as part of my genin team!"

"Gai-sensei! You're the one who made this happen!"

It occurred to me that Lee's name made _no sense_.

Tenten's eyes met mine. "Lee goes by his family name," she explained, carefully, before she clearly mouthed 'I don't know either'.

Everyone's attention drifted towards me, and I realized I was expected to finish the round of introductions. I shoved my hands into my pockets. "Uchiha Sasuke."

Both Neji and Lee's gazes lasered in on me.

"Wait," Sakura went. She stared at Kakashi. "You were put on _what?"_

"Ah, you caught that? I was put on probation," Kakashi explained, as though it wasn't important in the least. "For the near future we'll have supervision from another jounin during training."

"But not on missions?" Naruto asked, sounding confused.

"Ninja on probation don't get assigned to missions," Kakashi said, examining his nails. "I suggest you three carefully budget your expenses against the minimum monthly stipend for genin."

Naruto swallowed. "Right. We can do that." He did not actually sound sure of himself, as he looked between me and Sakura.

"Gai decided to join us for today. He's kindly offered to lead today's session if you're willing to accept," Kakashi continued to explain. Without changing his tone at all, only shifting to straighten up and raise an eyebrow, he managed to convey how he felt about that idea. Unseen by her sensei, Tenten shook her head, motioning with a chopping motion across her neck.

"We could spar," Neji said, staring directly at me.

"What an excellent idea!" Lee agreed, also looking at me.

I wasn't used to being looked at like a piece of meat like _this_. It was off putting in a new and different way, and I wasn't the only one who felt this way, from the looks of things; Sakura, Naruto, and even Tenten looked unimpressed by Tenten's teammates.

"Hm," went Kakashi, unfolding to his full height, as he observed me and the genin.

"We usually set up and run an obstacle course," I said, doing my best to sound casual.

"Yeah!" Naruto said, enthused. "It's great."

"Why not this? We set it up, and you run the course with us," I suggested. "Last team still in the trees decides what we do after. If you hit the ground because of a trap or someone else, you're out. If you win, we can spar one on one."

"It sounds fine to me if they're up for it," Sakura said, as Naruto nodded in agreement.

Tenten looked at us with a thoughtful expression, and opened her mouth to speak. Before she could, Neji interrupted her.

"We'll do it. It can't be that hard."

Lee crossed his arms, and nodded. "Not after our training with Gai-sensei!"

Tenten sighed. "I guess we're in. How does your obstacle course work?" she asked, sounding like she regretted the fact she didn't have the chance to ask earlier.

Naruto's eyes lit up. "It's trap based! We set up a bunch of rope triggers and now ninja wire ones even though that was before we left for a month along to trigger shuriken and kunai and normally Kakashi-sensei chases us through it for a few hours so we have to evade both him and everything while we run through the course and sometimes he kicks us out of trees if he catches up on us and sometimes he'll throw in a fireball jutsu and other stuff which kinda sucks since you can't always tell if they're real or just genjutsu and..." Naruto's volume gradually lowered, before he ran out of air and had to breathe again.

Tenten stared at Neji as she untangled what Naruto was rambling on about.

"We've had to pay fines for chuunin who have been caught by left-behind traps a few times," Kakashi commented. "They've gotten better at dismantling the whole thing."

"Amazing," Gai said. "Their teamwork must be incredible already! We've mostly worked on team exercises and sparring. I'll be excited to see how my wonderful genin do."

Tenten's expression looked increasingly horrified. "Sensei, _you haven't had us do anything with traps yet._ " She shot a betrayed look at Neji.

"I have faith in the ability of my Byakugan," Neji defensively answered.

"Yosh!"

Tenten made a strangled noise, and dragged her hands down her face. I really couldn't blame her. Soon enough, she straightened up. "If you're the only ones who know where the traps are, it isn't really fair. We can pair up," she said, apparently deciding to work with the situation as best as she could.

"That works," Sakura replied.

Tenten looked between her team and us, before speaking again. "I'll go with Sasuke-kun," she decided, which I absolutely had no problem with. "Lee, why don't you work with Naruto-kun, and that leaves Sakura-chan with Neji." Tenten was putting obvious effort into trying to limit any problems from developing, which was more than could be said for either of her teammates or even Gai, who seemed to be ignoring the brewing tension and desire for a fight from Neji and Lee.

"Fine," Neji answered.

Sakura seemed distinctly unimpressed by Neji. I was starting to wonder exactly what her standards were. Was it black hair? Then again, she showed active antipathy towards Lee's crush when he announced it to her in the series, so appearances clearly played a huge factor. On the other hand, attitude problems didn't seem to be a problem for her.

Naruto looked like he had far more mixed feelings. He was clearly thriving off of the sheer wordless enthusiasm radiating from Lee at working with something new that was arguably one of Naruto's favorite things. At the same time, Lee was definitely one of the 'weirdos' by Naruto's standards. Eventually, he shook his head, and gave Lee a wide grin. "Let's get started!"

Lee punched a fist into the air. "Yes! Show me this talent you have such Youthful passion for, Naruto-kun!"

Naruto laughed.

I shrugged at Tenten. "I'll go grab my bag. Everything's in there."

She nodded.

Sakura and I ended up walking to the tree our bags were together. "I can't believe he thought he could just slip that through without actually telling us," she said quietly. "The only plus side to this is we're going to get experience training with other people ahead of time." She looked over at me. "Are you going to be okay, Sasuke-kun? Both of those boys look too ready to fight you."

I shrugged. "They were a whole year ahead of us," I said. I wondered why that particular phrasing felt important to specify before I decided to ignore it. "They must have run out of easier targets."

"You'd think they'd go after older genin, then," Sakura grumbled. "I've heard about the Hyuuga boy. He's Hinata-chan's cousin and is supposed to be some kind of genius. Some older girl actually tried to give him a graduation gift when his class became genin and he made her cry." That was impressively callous, even for pre-teens. Between this and the conversation earlier with Hinata's team, I was beginning to suspect not very many people liked Neji.

When we reached the tree, she slung her bag over her shoulders and sighed. "It figures Kakashi-sensei would be friends with someone like Gai-sensei and get us roped into something like this."

"Hey, hey, think we could get them to take us out to eat if we win?" Naruto asked, as he loped over to us. "Idunno about you two, but without any missions for however long, I'm gonna be _broke_." He made a face.

"Is the stipend that low?" Sakura asked. "I thought it was supposed to be enough for a single genin to live off of if they were independent."

Naruto looked at her in surprise. "Oh, yeah, you live with your family," he said, as though that hadn't come into consideration. "You can live off it, yeah, but _barely_. That's how much I used to get, after I was moved into an apartment. At least since it's warm out cold showers aren't that bad right now an' I can just keep a window open until it gets too hot for _that_." He looked thoughtful. "Do either of you know how much electricity a fan uses?"

Sakura gave him a baffled look. "What?"

I shook my head.

"I'll just have to find Iruka-sensei and ask him," he decided.

Sakura sighed. "Tell Iruka-sensei hi for me if you do, I guess. We should get going before they accuse us of collaborating or something." She started walking back.

Over with his team, Neji was staring at us.

I grabbed Sasuke's bag and followed after her, Naruto trailing after me, speculating out loud on what he should try to stock up on for the time being.

Tenten split from her teammates to join me before I actually reached them. "Your sensei's still making you guys haul everything around like that?" she asked, taking in the bulky bag. "Using seals for storage is more effective."

I didn't know how to answer that particular question, so I shrugged. "Does it matter for this?"

"It can," she answered, though she didn't look entirely sure how to explain it. As we reached the beginning of the treeline, she looked over at me. "You're the one who came up with doing this. How do we start?" In spite of her teammates overriding her before she could counter the idea in the first place, Tenten sounded actually interested in learning. It made sense that she would be, since she actually used weapons on a regular basis. It at least ran parallel to her specialty.

After we were entirely under the canopy of leaves, I looked around, scoping things out, not entirely aware I was doing it until I realized I was slinging the pack off my shoulders and pulling rope and kunai out in one continuous flow of motion.

"Naruto's the best at this," I found myself saying. This wasn't actually wrong, and I let myself just go with the actions instead of trying to fight it.

"After his explanation and your sensei's comments, I figured," Tenten replied, sounding amused. "But I bet you must have picked some of it up besides the academy basics if your team's doing this often enough."

I let myself nod, and got to work.

Like before, I ended up listening to the thoughts that had opinions on what to do and how, and after the first couple of snare traps to catch at unwary arms or legs, I became confident enough to diverge from the suggestions of the dream, and started to try adding things I thought would work, Tenten watching carefully.

After I started to experiment, Tenten began to ask questions, mostly to do with the intent or goal of the various ones I had already set; they were all surprisingly focused on the 'why' rather than 'how', but she must have gotten a good enough idea of that while watching me set them up.

Soon enough, she joined me in setting a few up, and we began to stretch it out further and further from the original part of the woods we started, until I was starting to very carefully edge ours into where I could tell Sakura and Naruto had their own up. I could occasionally hear Naruto and Lee shouting enthusiastically.

The first time we heard them, I looked at Tenten, whose first reaction was to shrug in return. "They sound like they're having fun," she said, thoughtfully, after awhile. "Lee usually likes training no matter what, though."

I shrugged back, trying to ignore the utter silence from the trees Sakura would be in with Neji. She didn't seem to like Neji's behavior, and Neji had only shown serious contempt for all of Team Seven up to and including Kakashi, so it was probably a good thing that it was quiet, instead of filled with shouting and yelling.

In the end, we had ended up creating a series of traps of increasing complexity weaved between the branches, with mostly-safe paths that frequently led to dead ends or would result in zagging suicide runs that ran the risk of being dangerous without enough sustained momentum. For someone who had shown doubts at first and claimed they hadn't done this much, Tenten had caught on quickly. I could only guess that it was because she was supposed to be familiar with most ninja tools by this point, even if in some cases it seemed like some of it was just theory.

I motioned to Tenten to signal that it was the last of what was in the bag, and dropped down from the branch we had wound up on. She followed right after me.

Looking straight up from the ground, it was possible to see the occasional glint of metal among the treetops as the leaves occasionally swayed in the day's warm breeze, letting the sunlight in.

Tenten's smile stretched into a grin as she looked up at it as well. "If this goes well, I'm going to see if I can convince Gai-sensei to let us do this on our own, too. This will be a great way for studying arc movement and practicing blocking with some rigging." She sounded like some of the engineering grad students I knew, right before they were going to try something that had a higher than usual chance of blowing up, breaking down, or destroying itself. By now I recognized the more destructive ones on sight and tried to avoid sitting near them at events, even if free food was on the line.

Maybe Tenten was not so reasonable after all.

We left the cover of the trees. In the time we had spent, the sun had moved across the sky, and Kakashi and Gai had moved to be under the trees covering the path. Kakashi was leaning against one of the tree trunks, facing this way. Conspicuously absent, a stray thought trailed through, was the usual book, before I dismissed it. Sakura and Neji were already ahead of us.

When we joined them, Sakura was seething and Neji gave us a dismissive look. Thankfully, Naruto and Lee emerged from the trees just as we reached them. Neji's hostility was weirdly palpable for a dream.

"You should consider setting some terms," Kakashi said, once Naruto and Lee were close enough to hear him without the need to shout.

Naruto gave him a confused look. "Terms? Huh?"

"Taijutsu only," I said, looking directly at Neji. "Nothing else."

He snorted. "You haven't unlocked the power of your doujutsu yet, have you? Fine. Taijutsu only."

I felt a sudden surge of desire to wipe the smugness and sense of superiority out of him entirely before I did my best to tamp it down. It made no sense to me. Neji wasn't that obnoxious.

Tenten slumped for a moment. "Aw. There goes my ideas. I agree to it, too."

Lee patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry! I am sure we can try them out in the future!"

"Taijutsu's fine with me," Sakura said, through gritted teeth. Neji had apparently really rubbed her the wrong way.

Naruto nodded his head up and down. "Yeah!"

"What a wonderful example of cooperation," Gai said.

Kakashi flapped a hand in Gai's direction dismissively, before he went over everything. "Right. All of you will be going through the course. Three against three. Taijutsu is allowed, but nothing else. The only requirement is to have the last man still in the trees. Landing on the ground puts you out. Gai and I observe to make sure nothing too dangerous happens. Did I miss anything?"

He only received heads shaking at him.

"Well, in you go, then," he said, before standing up from his leaning position to shoo us towards the trees.

We split up back into our original teams and headed for the trees, with a healthy distance between the two groups.

Sakura clenched her hands into fists as Team Gai jumped into the trees a moment before we did. "Ugh. He's actually worse than all the gossip says."

"Who? Neji?" Naruto asked, just before he landed on the first branch.

"He's awful!" Sakura answered. "He's so stuck up! He started asking me about my family and then right after said he didn't understand why I was bothering to waste Kakashi-sensei's time! Because I don't have any 'true' potential." She followed Naruto.

That was impressively galling, but letting her get too keyed up would not help.

"Sakura, take the lead," I said, looking ahead. Everything ahead was trapped.

"What? Why? We just started! Both you and Naruto still have more stamina, if I take the lead now, I'll just slow us down in the long term."

"They're older than us, bigger than us and are more experienced; if it comes down to time they're going to win. We don't need stamina, we need smarts, now _move_ ," I said, before I lightly shoved her forward, to force her towards the next branch ahead; I was reasonably sure it wasn't trapped, at least that I could see.

I turned out to be wrong, and Naruto let out a yelp as he quickly lunged to follow Sakura, just barely being missed by a shuriken that shot past the two of us.

I heard a shout of triumph that could only be Lee in the distance, which meant they had crossed their first trap as well.

Sakura immediately started leading us in the direction of Lee's shout.

"Wait, hey, why are we heading right for them?" Naruto asked.

"We need them to see us if we want to try to lure them in," Sakura answered, as she ran down the length of a branch. She leapt across, and ran up the next tree's trunk, just avoiding ninja wire that shone in the light a moment that was almost too late. "They're going to be hunting _us_ , so we need to see them first."

It wasn't long until we crossed paths, and it became clear how much being in the trees was actually in our favor.

The moment they saw us, Lee sped ahead of his teammates and ran straight towards us without bothering to take into consideration anything else, and was clipped across the thigh by a triggered kunai for his effort.

Gai might have needed to beat teamwork into his genin and all of that training meant they would have the advantage for sparring, but we had spent time being chased around, kicked and otherwise thrown out of the treetops by Kakashi while dodging sprung traps, the occasional fireball, and doing our best to avoid getting flattened by the jounin.

"Lee! Are you okay?" Tenten shouted.

Lee immediately jumped backwards, eyes widening. "Yosh!" He turned back towards Neji and Tenten. "I'm fine! I see why they suggested this obstacle course now! It's a true challenge!"

Sakura motioned to me and Naruto to fan out.

Lee turned back, just in time to see her give the command. "Beautiful Sakura-chan! After we win, will you go out on a date with me?"

Sakura did her best to not grimace. "Sorry, I'm not interested in you!"

Lee hung his head. "It was worth a shot."

Without warning, he propelled himself upwards, grabbing onto and shoving up from increasingly thinner branches that cracked and strained under his weight. Finally, he reached one that started to break entirely. From the branch I was standing on, I could see the brief moment where actual annoyance and frustration crossed Lee's face. It was a bit hard to not see his eyebrows crinkle together.

Before both he and the branch dropped, Lee closed his legs tightly together and shoved down from the branch at an angle, pulling his arms tight around him. He was aiming right in my direction, and he gained speed, alarmingly fast.

So far these dreams had been particularly awfully realistic where pain and violence were concerned, and the moment in the show where Lee dropped his weights flashed into my head. Dream or not, I did not feel like getting mildly splattered or squashed.

I bolted just in time.

Lee's momentum, combined with the weights he wore, turned out to be slightly too much as he sheared through the branch I had been on just barely a second ago and ended up making a hard landing on the ground below. Leaves, other forest detritus, and dirt blew upwards around the small crater that formed under him.

Lee stood up, looking staggered and shocked. "I missed?" He looked upwards. "Well done, Sasuke-kun!"

Naruto stared in horror. "What the fuck."

Sakura's eyes widened, and she shouted down at Lee. "Hey! This is supposed to be friendly!"

Tenten groaned.

Neji looked down at his teammate with a contemptuous expression on his face.

"We can still win!" Lee shouted back up to them. He gave them a thumbs up.

Tenten glanced over at Neji, who focused his attention back on us. In spite of myself, I was beginning to want a go at him. I didn't like holier-than-thou attitudes in anyone when I was actually awake, and I sure as hell was getting tired of pretending to tolerate it even barely in something as stupid as this, even if it was from a dumb teenaged boy.

Below me, Sakura and Naruto exchanged nervous looks, before Sakura visibly steeled herself.

Before Tenten or Neji could do anything, Sakura started running again, heading right into a thicker section of traps, leaving Naruto and I to follow after her as she did her best to weave through them all.

I turned back to take a look as we twisted around one tree. In spite of our lead, Neji and Tenten were quickly gaining on us. They didn't have to spend the time to be careful about navigating if they just made sure to follow the exact path as us, and they were faster.

"They're catching up on us," I warned.

"I know!" Sakura shouted. She was taking this seriously, now.

We reached a small gap in the trees, just large enough that the sky was visible above and the sunlight was bright on the grassy ground below, centered on a large fallen log in the middle of the tiny clearing.

Sakura suddenly stalled, frantically motioning for us to stop.

Ninja wire glinted in the light, strung through the whole thing, before it disappeared invisible into the trees.

"Whose idea was this death trap?" I asked.

Naruto laughed. "Whoops?"

"Naruto, we just barely started working with ninja wire!" Sakura half-wailed. "You take lead, I'm not risking it."

"But I thought we were supposed to be learning how to work around this sorta thing since it's an obstacle course for training," Naruto said.

"Right now we're trying to win!" She shoved Naruto forwards to make him jump before Tenten and Neji could close in on us even more than they already had.

With a shout of surprise that midway through turned into a laugh, Naruto let himself fall down to the branch below, before turning around and heading towards the remaining members of Team Gai.

Sakura then shoved me ahead as well, and I was still processing it when I landed.

Why was she taking the rear?

Naruto ran to the very edge of the branch he was on, before he dropped off the branch to hang off of it, making it bend dangerously. He let go, launching himself with a laugh to land against the tree's trunk. The branch swung upwards immediately, once more freed from his weight, and must have triggered something, because shuriken launched outwards, making Tenten and Neji stop, just barely in time.

The brown haired girl swore as we sped off.

"Didya see their faces?" Naruto asked, laughing, as he zigged and zagged on top of and the underside of the branches, occasionally ricocheting off the sides of the tree trunks or running up them. Every now and then he would purposefully shake a tree branch or make one sway, setting off another trap that would force the other two into taking a new route or stop entirely. How he knew where he was going, I had no idea. It was terrifyingly chaotic.

Finally, their luck ran out. I turned when I heard the unexpected sharp ping of ninja wire snapping. It was just barely fast enough to see what happened.

Neji had triggered a trap by trying to brute force a shortcut. I could only guess that he had at last given in to the impatience and frustration at consistently being evaded. Tenten, just behind him, barely had time to dive out of the way, coming to a rolling stop on the grass below. Lee, who had been watching from the log, helped her up.

"That's another of them out," Naruto said, gleefully. "We've got this!"

I wasn't so sure of that. Neji's temper looked like it had completely blown, and he was still gaining on us, no longer caring about whether he was springing wires or not.

It was becoming very clear that the only thing that had kept him at a distance earlier was his teammates. Neji was no longer having to care about their limitations or accidentally causing collateral damage to them, now that Tenten was out of the picture. Instead, all of his focus was on us.

The nightmares where you were hunted by some indomitable force were the ones I disliked the most, and it was not actually helped by that particular creeping horror being disguised as an asshole ninja child with magical eyes. Instead, it was actually a bit worse. He wasn't even a _creepy_ child. The eyes didn't really count.

"I don't think so," I said, when it was becoming clear that even _with_ Naruto having a concerningly intimate understanding of how to navigate this wire-filled hellscape, we just weren't up to the task of keeping away from the angry teenaged Hyuuga coming after us.

We jumped, following Naruto to bound off the side of one tree to reach another one, to make a sharp turnaround. I had just reached the other side when he finally caught up to Sakura, who was still in mid-air.

"Sakura! Watch out!" Naruto shouted in alarm.

It wasn't enough. Neji's open palm shot out, striking Sakura's leg. She shouted out in surprise and pain, and hit the trunk of the tree instead of landing against it, crumpling as she started to fall.

Naruto all but blasted away from the tree he was in, shooting towards Sakura with more speed than he should have had on his own. He had shoved himself off with chakra, I realized. It was the same repelling trick from Wave, which had worked out so poorly for him then. He reached Sakura and wrapped himself around her, right before they hit the ground, tumbling and skidding in a tangle of limbs before they finally stopped.

Neji looked directly at me, his eyes meeting mine. Despite the distance between us, the bulging veins on each temple were visible. He had activated his Byakugan. His lips were contorted into a cruel looking smirk of triumph. The terms of this training game no longer mattered to him.

I wondered if they ever had.

He wasn't the only one capable of being a complete asshole. This was just a dream. Even with the rolling consequences carrying on from dream to dream, they really didn't matter. Neji was an easily solved problem.

My fingers moved from one seal to the other, and I blew out a stream of fire.

He barely moved in time to avoid the full blast.

Before I could turn to keep it directed on him, I was dragged out of the tree, the interrupted flames sending me coughing and sputtering.

"Enough," Kakashi said, before he dumped me on the clearing ground, right in front of the fallen log.

"Fine," I muttered, after I finished hacking up my lungs and stood back up. It was uncomfortably similar to the one and only time I had tried smoking.

"What do you mean, 'enough'?" Naruto asked, angrily. He was supporting Sakura, his arm under one of her shoulders, helping her over to us. "Didn't you see what that jerk did to Sakura?" The two of them had leaves and twigs in their hair still from the rough landing, and Naruto's face was smudged with dirt. There was something wrong with the leg Neji had hit. Whatever he had done, not only did it look like she couldn't put any weight on it, she didn't seem like she could hold it up to keep it from dragging on the ground, either.

"No, he's right," Sakura said, wincing from the pain. "If Sensei's on probation, it's not just going to be him they're paying attention to, is it?"

"The choices we make have consequences," was all Kakashi said in response.

Sakura glanced at me uneasily; no doubt the conversation from earlier was coming back to mind.

Across from us, just outside of the clearing, it looked like a similar conversation was playing out just out of hearing range. From here, it looked like Neji's hair had taken the brunt of the heat, and he showed no sign of contriteness in spite of the serious expression on Gai's face as he spoke to the teenager. Tenten and Lee both looked actively unhappy with Neji.

"What? But that isn't fair! He hurt Sakura-chan, but because Sasuke retaliated, _we're_ the ones who can get in trouble from this?"

"Our lives aren't meant to be fair." Kakashi looked over at Team Gai. "Help Sakura sit down. Make sure that leg is extended and has as little weight on it as possible. Sasuke, come with me."

Naruto and Sakura gave Kakashi a wary look upon hearing that, but he helped Sakura over to the log, where he slowly lowered her down to sit.

Kakashi started to walk to the trees, stopping at the nearest one so he was still in sight of everyone else.

I followed, and ended up standing in front of him. He leaned against the tree.

For what felt like an agonizing length of time, he said nothing, instead staring around at everything: the sky, the ground, the trees, the shuriken and kunai that pierced the trunks and littered the ground. Finally, he pushed his hands into his pockets.

I gave in. "Are you going to say anything?" I finally asked.

"I'd rather not," he answered.

I was completely bewildered. What the hell was that supposed to mean? "Maybe next time, you should figure that out." I turned, and began to walk back towards Naruto and Sakura, neither of whom were paying attention to us, since Naruto was busy fretting over Sakura to the point that she was beginning to look frazzled. Team Gai had also made their return.

Kakashi's hand shot out, faster than I could see, latching onto my arm. Apparently he did have something to say after all. "You need to be careful." That was it, and he let go. He looked awkwardly self-conscious as we walked back; I could only guess that this attempt at a talk completely failed to meet his own expectations, whatever they were.

Sakura and Naruto were bickering by the time we reached them, Sakura trying to force Naruto out of her personal space. It wasn't going so well for her.

"Naruto, you don't need to hover! I'm _fine!_ "

"He killed your leg! What if it spreads upwards?"

"Wha—? I just need to go to the hospital, I'll be okay!" Sakura made one last attempt to shove him away. Her limited range thanks to the lack of mobility meant that Naruto was able to duck barely out of range.

"There probably won't be any permanent damage," Kakashi spoke up.

Gai walked over, giving Sakura a look over before turning his attention to Kakashi. "It's unfortunate this ended with a small training accident," he said, at his usual volume. "Sometimes genin underestimate themselves."

Sakura and Naruto stared at Gai as they realized what was playing out in front of them. While they didn't know what sort of reputation Gai had, it was obvious they were aware that none of this was normal.

Naruto opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Sakura determinedly leaned forward, and yanked him backwards towards her by the waist of his jacket, and slammed a hand over his mouth as she forced him to sit down next to him. His protests were completely muffled, and she kept her hand there until he stopped trying.

Now I was wondering what Gai's talk at his team— at Neji— had actually consisted of.

"Sometimes," Kakashi echoed.

"I'll take Sakura-chan to the hospital," Gai continued. "Unfortunately, it means we'll have to stop entirely, because of the Sandaime's orders." He looked back towards his team. "Consider yourselves dismissed for the day. We'll meet early tomorrow at three to make up for the lost time today. Make sure to rest well!"

As Gai spoke, I vaguely noticed my left arm was starting to feel cold.

Kakashi looked at me and Naruto. "I'll handle the teardown. I'll come for you all the next time we train." That was uncharacteristic.

Neji stared in my direction one last time, eyes narrowed, and then left without saying anything to anyone, walking away into the trees. Soon enough, he was out of sight.

Lee and Tenten walked over.

"I hope you recover quickly, Sakura-chan," Tenten told her, apologetically. "I'd like to spar with you in the near future. Your team seems... interesting." She glanced at Gai, as though to confirm what she said was alright. He gave her an affirmative thumbs-up.

Sakura managed a wan smile. "I think I might have to pass for now, but I'd like that."

"Me too!" Lee added. "If you don't mind, I would like to stop by the hospital to check on you before they close for the night, in case you're still there!"

Sakura blinked, clearly surprised. "Um, sure. I hope I'm not stuck there overnight, but that's okay with me."

Lee grinned, and started to head off, before he turned back. "It was nice to meet you, Naruto-kun!" There was a brief pause, before he added, "And you too, of course, Sasuke-kun." He didn't sound very convincing. He and Tenten left.

Naruto stood up, and looked between the two jounin. "Sakura's going to be okay, right? Is that why you're taking so long?"

"Of course she will be," Gai told him.

"He can't take her to the hospital until the two of you go," Kakashi said.

"Why's that?"

"I'm not supposed to be alone with any of you while I'm on probation."

"...Oh." Naruto's face fell, and he looked between Sakura, Kakashi, and then me. He was visibly torn over what to do.

"We could go to the hospital, too," I suggested.

Naruto immediately perked up, and looked at Sakura. "You won't mind?"

Things faded away in pain.

* * *

I woke up slumped over on the couch again, my shoulder completely stiff, out of position, and burning in pain from the inside out. Where the shoulder pain stopped radiating in my upper arm, it shifted over to cold numbness. To add insult to old injury, my head was beginning to throb from the lack of sleep, too.

The television was on again, the screen still black.

My phone was next to me, only half charged. My main alarm hadn't gone off yet; it wasn't supposed to for another half hour. The pain was what had woken me up entirely. Going back to sleep wasn't an option.

I shoved myself off the couch, and limped over to the kitchen. Like my shoulder, my knee was also stiff and throbbing. I set the coffee maker to run, adding more grounds than I usually did, and left to shower, dry-swallowing painkillers when I set out clothes for the day. When I got out, I poured the newly-brewed coffee back in to brew a second time.

It wasn't until the class I TA'd for was done that I actually unlocked my phone to open my school email. The internet browser was filled with dozens of different tabs from the _Naruto_ wiki.

I picked up a fifth of Jack on the way home and slugged half of the bottle before I went to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun trivia: Among the United States Marine Corps (and sailors with too much exposure to marines) Non-Judicial Punishment is also called getting Ninja Punched. 
> 
> If you're going to be doing NaNoWriMo this November, come [join](https://discord.gg/xZrqJC6) me for sprints!


	9. Time to Raise Hell or Walk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More consequences emerge. (And the Chuunin Exams.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to the very sleep-deprived, NaNoing dakeyras for beta-reading. 
> 
> This chapter getting written _and_ posted this early comes entirely because the stress of Election Week combined with NaNoWriMo resulted in some unexpected speed. I make no promises that the rest of the month will see more updates besides the usual beginning/end of month one.

"—think this was their village, with those attitudes," Ino complained.

I barely avoided crashing into Naruto. I had gone from being spinny and light-headed from drinking too much in too short a time, on top of bone-deep exhaustion, to being completely sober and well rested. Combined with the sudden bright late-morning or early-afternoon sunlight and people suddenly around me wasn't the most disconcerting sensation ever, but it was up there.

"Whoa," Naruto went as he stepped out of the way and turned to look at me. "Hey, Sasuke, are you okay?"

"Got lost in my thoughts," I answered. It wasn't entirely a lie; if dreams didn't count for that, I wasn't sure what would. But it still gave me enough time to fully take in my surroundings as I shook my head to reorient myself.

For whatever reason, Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji were with us. 'Us'. When did I start thinking of myself as part of the same group as Naruto and Sakura?

"Maybe save it for when we aren't on a main street," Shikamaru muttered. He was slouched over, his hands in his pockets.

Sakura looked between him, and me. "Things have been kind of tense since..." She drifted off, meaningfully. She clearly meant Kakashi ending up on probation— and the apparently dramatic way it had been packaged up— but it wasn't clear why she was reluctant to speak up about it until we passed by a group of men and women, some of whom were in uniform, who, when they got a good look at us, exchanged glances between themselves.

After we had passed them by, I could pick up their voices as they spoke, half indistinguishable.

"...Hatake's genin, aren't they…?"

"Of course he'd turn out like his old man..."

"You don't think..."

I wasn't the only one, gauging from the reactions. Naruto's hands clenched into fists, and he bit into his bottom lip, half-frowning. He obviously wanted to say something.

Chouji shook his head at Naruto. "You can't yell at every adult we see," he said, before he pulled out a handful of chips from the bag he was holding.

Sasuke and tomatoes. Chouji and potato chips. I wondered for a moment where— no, not where, _how—_ the geography would even work for those to exist. It didn't really matter, but it was still _interesting_.

"Watch me," Naruto grumbled, though he didn't push the matter. "I could almost understand why they hate me, but Sensei's supposed to be well-known and has a reputation and all that and they still started acting like this?"

"It's like in the academy," Ino said, sounding thoughtful.

Sakura looked unimpressed. "I thought we were supposed to 'grow out of it' when we got older?"

"What, being hypocrites?" Shikamaru asked, glancing between the girls. "I overhear Tou-san talking to Kaa-san about this stuff sometimes, when he thinks I'm not around or paying attention. A lot of the jounin are just as dumb as the younger academy students sometimes, the way he talks."

Chouji and Ino made faces at this discovery. For Sakura and Naruto, exposed to Kakashi's peculiarities and then Gai's, this was nothing new.

Sakura looked thoughtful at Shikamaru's comment. "Your father's the Jounin Commander, isn't he?"

"Yeah, but don't ask _me_ anything about it or what he thinks or whatever. 'Things the Jounin Commander complains at his wife about' doesn't actually tell you anything interesting and I'd rather not get murdered by my mom if she found out I was saying anything," Shikamaru answered, with an exaggerated shiver. At least, I assumed it was.

"Didn't you just right now?" Naruto asked, sounding confused.  
  
Shikamaru scoffed. "I didn't say anything that _isn't_ obvious."

"It's boring when they talk work, anyways," Chouji said, half-complaining. "We aren't really supposed to know, but they talk about it anyways, but since we don't know what they're really talking about it's just boring and doesn't make sense. You'd think if they wanted to talk about work so much, they'd just go and do it and leave us alone."

Ino looked frustrated. "Well, maybe they're just trying to spend time with us while they can," she said with surprising heat to her voice. "We're lucky they work in the village, but things can still happen."

Shikamaru looked taken aback, making a face at her. "Don't talk like that," he muttered, sounding unsettled. "It's such a drag."

Naruto looked between me and Chouji, trying his best to convey… something.

I shrugged.

"Why are we talking about this, anyways?" Chouji asked.

"Don't look at me. Ino's the one who made it turn all serious," Shikamaru told him.

"What?" Sakura frowned. "It was already serious before, wasn't it?"

"Not like that." Shikamaru snorted a breath through his nose. "Let's just forget it."

The conversation trailed into silence. At this point I was wondering if we were even actually _heading_ anywhere, or if we were just aimlessly wandering.

"Uh, why don't we grab some store bento and have lunch?" Naruto awkwardly suggested, which ended up answering the question. "We can eat in a park somewhere."

"Sounds good to me," Chouji answered.

"Since when is _your_ go-to idea a store bento?" Ino asked, not quite scoffing. She sounded more baffled, than anything.

Naruto scratched the back of his neck, grinning self consciously. "I'm broke, and if we go to this one mini-shop near the park here up on one of the walkways, they usually have some old bento that are at least half-off. Just avoid the fish ones. The jii-san who runs the place doesn't have a good nose for when the fish has gone bad." The grin transformed into a cringing expression at that, which said more than anyone needed to know. "He's alright besides that, though."

Everyone, myself included, made faces of disgust at that.

"Anyone against Naruto's bento idea?" Sakura asked.

"Fine with me," I said, as Ino shook her head.

"I don't care," was Shikamaru's answer.

Naruto ended up taking the lead, heading up a stairway against a nearby residence that led onto an upper level walkway, only a short rail keeping it from being a steep drop-off on one side. The other was against upper level homes and the occasional storefront, with the rare steep staircase that led to even higher and more rickety levels that looked like they had been added on as an afterthought. Occasionally there was a bridge crossing above the street, connecting the precarious levels to other built-up sections.

There were more people up here than I would have expected, but I wasn't that fond of heights.

Our route ended up being cut off by a trio of teenagers up ahead, in the middle of what appeared to be an argument, or worse. They actually seemed to be surrounding someone, going from the closed off circle they were in and the vague outline of a figure between the breaks between bodies.

Naruto squinted. "Who are those guys?"

"Those are Kiri hitai-ate on their heads. What are they doing here?" Sakura wondered.

"Kiri-nin? Should they even be in the village?" Chouji sounded— and looked— concerned. He had closed his bag of chips entirely. "We should turn around."

Before we could get any closer or anyone had a chance to ask what they were doing, whoever it was in the middle of the cluster of bodies made their move, attacking the brown haired boy closest to the outer railing. All we could make out from our vantage point was them being pushed back, probably from being punched, and then a sandaled foot striking out that sent them toppling over the railing and then down to the street below.

There were cries of alarm from the ground.

The mystery fighter didn't stop there, however; he or she moved right from that to evading an attempted grappling from the teen that was right next to the building wall. Water briefly glistened in the air before there was the sound of a body smacking against liquid— a harsh slapping noise— that forced that one into a hard spin from the force. It was followed by a sharp knee right into that teenager's groin that had all of the boys wincing in sympathy.

"I told you to fuck off!" That was a particularly aggravated teenaged boy's voice.

Instead of waiting for an actual reply though, another flurry of movement— still blocked by the remaining standing figure of the three who had been the original aggressors— dropped the final teenager, who fell over with a moan.

As if to punctuate his point, the remaining teenager— white haired and angry looking— pulled a water bottle from off of his belt, chugged it, and then smashed it onto the last fallen teen's head before looking at us. A Kiri hitai-ate was tied loosely on top of the belt, hanging slightly from his hip.

"What do you think you're looking at?" Houzuki Suigetsu asked us, still scowling.

"A real asshole," Naruto answered.

Sakura looked a mix between impressed and affronted.

Chouji didn't look that happy at the fact that we had his attention. I could only imagine that the fact we watched him lay out three other people single-handedly without any real apparent effort had to do something with it.

"Foreign nin aren't supposed to be fighting inside our walls," Shikamaru answered, sounding annoyed; it was probably at himself, for attempting to be responsible. "Who are you?"

Suigetsu scoffed. "If I didn't, they were going to start it anyway. I'm Houzuki Suigetsu. You're just lucky I didn't actually finish them."

Ino made a face. "You kicked one of them onto the street. You could have killed him."

"So?" Suigetsu leaned over, and ripped the hitai-ate off of the teenaged boy that was collapsed against the wall. He then chucked it over the side, where we could see it hit his first opponent square in the forehead.

He screamed. "Fuck you, Houzuki!"

"See? Still alive," Suigetsu said. He looked like he was trying to be more flippant than he actually was. In spite of his words and actions, he was still eyeing us, gauging our reactions. It was all a show.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'm Nara Shikamaru, and this is Akimichi Chouji and Yamanaka Ino."

Ino crossed her arms, straightening to stand at her full height. She didn't look that happy at either Shikamaru deciding to do their introductions or Suigetsu now knowing her name.

"Oh, you're a genin team," Suigetsu said, sounding unimpressed. "You three actually spend time together willingly?"

Naruto made a face. "Hey, my team hangs out when we're not training, too."

"Fine, the Leaf is filled with over-friendly brain-dead idiots," Suigetsu snarked.

"Compared to aggressive brain-dead idiots?" Sakura asked, getting angry. "You're the one asking for trouble. You can't even put up with your own comrades in a foreign village."

"They aren't my comrades," he shot back.

Naruto gave him a confused look, before glancing at everyone else to see if we had any idea of what that was supposed to mean. We were just as at much of a loss, if not more. Then again, Kiri was pretty messed up in the series and Suigetsu did get snatched by Orochimaru somehow. So maybe that played into it.

"If you keep throwing tantrums like this, you're going to end up getting attention you don't want," I said calmly. "We're going to grab food and eat in a park. Why don't you join us, before you get yourself thrown out the village gates."

Suigetsu looked like he’d just sucked on a lemon and got smacked in the face with a rolled up newspaper at the same time.

I felt somewhat awkward as I realized the others had their attention split between me and him, waiting for a response. It was unexpectedly tense.

"Whatever," he said, though the anger from earlier had fizzled out, leaving only defensiveness. "It isn't like I know where to get food here that won't charge me extra because I'm not from around here."

"The hitai-ate and pointy teeth kind of give it away," I said, blandly.

"Wait, he has pointy teeth?" Naruto suddenly said. Without warning, he rushed over to Suigetsu, stepping over the still-groaning Kiri genin on the ground between us, and tried to stick his hands in Suigetsu's mouth to check, getting far too close for comfort for the other shinobi.

"What the fuck, get off of me!" Suigetsu said. Or at least that's what I guess he was trying to say. He was trying to fend Naruto off with far less poise than he had shown with the other Kiri-nin.

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted.

Shikamaru dragged a hand down his face and groaned. "Why..."

"It is kinda funny," Chouji said, watching.

Naruto yelled as Suigetsu bit him on the hand. That had taken far longer than it should have. I could only guess that pride— or maybe some unexpected sense of hygiene— had some role to play in Suigetsu not biting down sooner. It was probably one thing to have weird teeth, but perhaps it was another to use them. Maybe he had no idea what to make of an obvious genin who was willing to stick his hands into a foreigner's mouth. Then again, I couldn't actually remember seeing any of the ninja from Kiri in the show who had sharp teeth actually biting anyone.

Naruto backed away, shaking his hand and sending droplets of blood into the air before he gripped it with his other one in an attempt to staunch the blood. "They really are sharp!"

"Sorry about our idiot," Shikamaru deadpanned.

Suigetsu spat onto the floor and glared at Naruto. "Keep your hands to yourself, you weirdo!" In spite of this unexpected assault, he didn't seem angry enough to kick up another fight.

"We should probably get going before all of us get in trouble," I decided to say.

Ino looked over the railing. "I'm surprised no one's shown up yet. That kid's still down there."

"You first," Suigetsu said, eyeing Naruto cautiously.

I ended up walking over, trying to not step on the unconscious teenager on the floor, and grabbed Naruto's wrist, pulling him past Suigetsu, who eyed him cautiously. "Food was your idea," I reminded him.

"Oh yeah," he went, willingly being dragged. "We aren't that far away."

"Sorry about Naruto," Sakura said, looking at Suigetsu. She had rebounded back into being apologetic, despite Suigetsu's continued attitude that was more reminiscent of 'wet cat' than anything else. "I'm Haruno Sakura, and those two are Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto."

"Hi," I said, flatly, after I could feel his stare boring into the side of my face. I decided to ignore it.

"I'm going to become Hokage someday," Naruto announced. "Believe it."

"With what survival instinct," Suigetsu grumbled under his breath. "You'll be lucky to survive to make chuunin if that's what you do to strangers."

"I don't know," Ino said, lightly. "Naruto can be pretty convincing at times. He could really do it."

I— and everyone else— turned to look at her at that comment. In my case, since I was still pulling Naruto by the wrist, it was so quick that Naruto ended up tripping, barely saving himself from stumbling entirely. Even he looked a bit confused that someone else from the academy was saying it.

It still didn't stop him from beaming though. "Really? Thanks, Ino!"

That only made the doubt on everyone else's faces deepen.

Ino made a face, before tilting her head up. "Fine, don't believe me." Somehow, it came off as more definitive than Naruto's usual exclamation.

"Whatever," Shikamaru said.

We finally came across the mini-mart Naruto had talked about, and I was mildly surprised by its appearance. It reminded me of the tiny neighborhood shops a block away from one of my uncles' houses, where someone's tia or abuela usually hocked cheap candies and snacks from either a window or a side room with its own door to the outside to the local kids. Sometimes with the latter they had a muggy looking fridge for cold drinks and food.

In this case, it looked like the latter. The door and large window showed obvious signs of being added later, and the small room— packed mostly with shelves of snacks and small sundry goods, one wall given up for freezers and fridges with glass doors— had an archway that was partially hidden by the cloth divider hanging over it. There wasn't even a real counter space; instead there was an elderly man, balding and leathery from a life in the sun, lightly snoring behind a rickety table with a cash-box behind him. There was no register in sight.

It probably wasn't even running legally, but I doubted the owner— and anyone who stopped here— actually cared.

As we filtered in through the door, everyone except Naruto was giving the place unsure looks. I let go, and he immediately made a bee-line for one of the fridges in the back.

"Hey, hey, I brought people with me, can I get a discount since they're buying stuff?" Naruto asked, loudly.

The old man startled, and for a moment there was a kunai in his hand, before he fully roused, looked at us, and set it on one side of the table, which immediately tilted. "No discounts," he answered, just as loudly, before he nodded right back off again.

It was honestly impressive.

Stopping at one of the fridges, Naruto pouted. "It was worth a shot," he grumbled, before he opened its door. He crouched, and started to look at the packaged food containers that were at the very bottom, their fronts labelled with red stickers.

"How'd you even find this place?" Sakura quietly asked, seeming to not want to wake the old man until it came time to pay.

"Ducked in here to evade some chuunin when I got them with a prank one day," Naruto said with a grin. "They didn't even think to check."

There was a crinkle of plastic as Chouji investigated one of the middle shelves. "I didn't even know some of these flavors existed," he said. For someone who enjoyed food, he didn't sound like he was actually thrilled by this. He held up a bag of potato chips to show to Shikamaru.

"Coffee flavor?" Shikamaru read out loud. "Chouji, those are three months past their best by-date."

Suigetsu made a face. "That sounds gross."

"I'm going to buy them," Chouji decided.

Ino made a sound of disgust.

"I need to know," was his only answer. "Hey, should I get the peppermint or Iron Country Spice flavored ones too?"

"What's 'Iron Country Spice' even supposed to be?" Naruto asked, comparing two bento.

"I don't know," Chouji answered. "Maybe spicy?"

"Don't get either," I spoke up. The idea of peppermint potato chips was too horrible for me to want to think about, and if the second was a mystery it seemed too risky. I yanked a random bento out from a stack above Naruto's head, and backed away to let any of the others look if they wanted.

Eventually, everyone had managed to pick something or other up, and we ended up paying the old man, who loudly counted the change out where it was necessary. At the sight of Suigetsu's hitai-ate, he loudly proclaimed, "No refunds!" That was interesting on its own.

Suigetsu looked extremely tempted to say something, but apparently decided to hold off, instead choosing to dump the money on the table for the bento and giant bottle of green tea he had picked out, and tried to edge out of the building as quick as he could; it was probably in the event the proprietor decided to change his mind about selling to a Kiri-nin.

"You forgot your change!" the man shouted just as Suigetsu reached the store's threshold. He froze, eyes widening and then narrowing as he turned around just barely in time to catch the coins thrown at him, juggling the tea bottle in an attempt to not drop anything.

"Are you really going to drink all that on your own?" Sakura asked, giving the large bottle a skeptical look. Unlike Suigetsu, who was the only one who had actually been menaced, she had a paper bag to hold what we got. Sakura and I had combined our purchases with Naruto to get food and one of the larger bottles of tea to share as well, before we subtly and wordlessly dumped extra change back on Naruto, who hadn't noticed that we had given him more than he should have gotten back.

"Yeah," he answered, defensively.

To my personal horror and disgust— and everyone else's as well— Chouji had ended up buying all three bags of potato chips. I didn't want to think about how any of those would taste.

After that, we returned down to the street on the ground.

Chouji's questionable chips had ended up becoming an ice-breaker, since the others— Suigetsu included— were arguing with increasing heat over what other terrible flavors could possibly exist. Chouji was getting flustered at some of them.

"Strawberry flavor," Shikamaru said, with some thought.

Sakura shook her head. "No, it's okay as a fake flavor, it couldn't be that bad. Maybe nattou?"

"Strong, but it'd be an old people flavor," Ino said, dismissively.

"I know," Suigetsu announced. " _Naruto_ flavor." He nudged what he was carrying towards his chest to be able to point at Naruto directly.

Naruto puffed his cheeks out. "What! Just because narutomaki is an ingredient," he said, making sure to emphasize the full name of the food in question, "it doesn't mean _I'm_ food!"

"Then why'd you stick your hand in my mouth!?"

"I wanted to look at your teeth!"

"You didn't have to put your hand in my mouth! That's not normal! Is there anything actually in your head?"

"It's mostly just thoughts about ramen," I spoke up, before Naruto could defend himself.

"I'm not that bad," he grumbled.

"Yes, you are," was echoed back at him in some form or another.

Naruto didn't have a chance to retort, because something down the side street we were crossing caught his attention, making his eyes go wide. He waved both his arms, as his face broke into a wide grin. "Hey! Hey! Look! It's Zabuza! And Haku! HEY! Sensei! What are you doing with them!?"

Sakura and I twisted, turning to look in that direction, which only led to more questions.

That was Haku, yes, smiling in our general direction, giving a much more sedate single-handed wave in return to Naruto's enthusiastic one. And that was Kakashi, with everything about his body language and what was visible of his face was all but screaming how much he did not actually want to be doing… whatever it was he was doing. And that was Zabuza, too. But what had me staring was the fact that he was wearing the blue and white hat of the Mizukage, and a white haori over his clothes. His immense sword was strapped over it, resting on his back.

I had no idea how the hell that had happened. It didn't make sense. This wasn't something I could possibly come up with; just like that, I came back to my senses.

I had completely forgotten this was a dream.

Suigetsu was staring at Naruto in disbelief. "You _know_ them? How?" he demanded, as he shifted the bottle of tea under one armpit and the bento into the crook of that side's elbow to free up his hands. He swept the now completely freed arm out in emphasis.

Shikamaru had one eyebrow raised, looking between Suigetsu and Team Seven, and Zabuza, Haku, and Kakashi. "I don't want to know," he said, finally. Chouji was looking at Ino with some visible concern, since she looked far more flabbergasted and confused than Shikamaru. If anything, her level of confusion was at least matching mine.

"Ah, there you are," Kakashi said, trying and failing to fill his voice with his usual apathetic levity when he was about to dump something on us. "As you can see, I'm no longer on probation. It seems you three have ran into our current mission by chance. We're in charge of assisting the Kirigakure delegation from Wave while they are here for the chuunin exams. I'm sure you remember Zabuza-sama." This last part was said through gritted teeth, as though he didn't want to say this out loud at all. It was probably only remnants of whatever professionalism Kakashi had that even made the words come out in the first place.

Sakura, unlike Naruto, was not taking this well, her earlier smile frozen on her face rictus-like, staring at the hat. It was only that that reminded me of what she had actually said that ended up stopping the fight between Kakashi and Zabuza from happening in the first place. She was clearly remembering it herself. Hidden villages needed people to be villages, or something along those lines. And Kakashi's mention of them being a delegation from _Wave_ …

That, combined with Suigetsu's angry comments when he insisted the Kiri-nin he had ended up fighting against weren't his comrades... everything fell together.

Sakura hadn't just accidentally encouraged revolution. She had, entirely without meaning it, inspired Zabuza to declare a splinter government. A second Kiri. It was still a revolutionary action, but very, very different from trying to directly usurp power. And by showing up here, wearing that hat, he was claiming legitimacy in a way that was impossible to ignore at all with the upcoming chuunin exams.

The swordsman standing in front of us was clearly revelling in the chaos of this conversation happening in the streets, given the amount of doubletakes from both passing chuunin and jounin and those that were shameless enough to stop either in the road or on nearby rooftops, balconies, and walkways. The amount of people who had just overheard this alone meant there was no way it wouldn't spread.

It was grade-A shitstirring on Zabuza's part, only made more blatant by the fact that Haku, standing by his side, appeared completely unaffected by the obvious staring going on.

"I see you've met Naruto-kun and his friends, Suigetsu-kun," Haku said, smiling placidly. "I hope he's had a chance to show you around his village."

Suigetsu's expression immediately turned into one of fury the moment Haku addressed him. "That idiot stuck his hand in my mouth!"

"Yeah? You bit me for it!"

Kakashi let out a quiet sigh as Naruto and Suigetsu escalated into bickering, but didn't even bother to make any comments about it, sly or otherwise. Instead, he went with a reprimand. "Naruto... please treat the foreign ninja with respect while they're within our walls."

Naruto actually shut up, looking sheepish, before he apparently circled back to Kakashi's earlier words, beaming at Haku and Zabuza.

"Zabuza-sama, Haku-sempai, these are some of our former classmates from the academy," Sakura said, still looking a little dazed, but trying to follow some kind of social convention. "Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, and Chouji Akimichi."

None of them seemed to know exactly what to do with being introduced like this; Shikamaru scuffed the side of his sandal on the ground, and Ino's confusion was still evident, not even hidden under her attempt at a smile. Chouji was actually the only one who seemed to be handling it, holding a hand up in greeting, and even that was awkward and self-conscious.

Haku smiled. "It's a pleasure to meet you all," he said, while Zabuza said nothing, only observing them.

Naruto seemed to have finally processed what Kakashi had said earlier, bouncing lightly on his feet as he grinned. "Hey, hey, wait, you guys are here for the chuunin exams?"

"I decided it would make a good entrance," Zabuza said, overly casual. There was a gleam in his eyes, though. "Haku was never actually a genin of Kirigakure before I left Water. I decided it would make sense for him to earn chuunin by merit, because of this. It'd look bad if I decided to just give him a promotion on my own." He put two fingers to the brim of the hat, almost mockingly.

"Zabuza-sama gave me one of his hitai-ate when he decided I was fit to join him in battle," Haku said. I wasn't sure if it was the presence of Team Ten or Zabuza's apparently self-given promotion that warranted the suffix upgrade. He had done it the first time, when Zabuza had called him in to introduce himself, but that had been showing off.

"Suigetsu-kun will be one of my teammates when the exams begin." If it weren't for the three-member team requirement, I imagined that Haku would be able to easily blitze the whole thing on his own. He wasn't a genin by any sense of the word. Zabuza looked in Suigetsu's direction, who immediately bristled again. "Where is our third team member?"

"I left him behind in our room at the inn, Haku-sempai," Suigetsu said, looking sulky. He didn't seem to like Haku that much, but unlike with us, or even the Kiri-nin from earlier, he wasn’t willing to cross into outright hostility. Then again, even without taking into consideration just how skilled Haku was, it was a particularly demented Pokemon set-up. Water-types were weak to ice-types. Or was it the other way around? Whichever it was, I was pretty sure that if it came down to a fight between them, Haku would be able to turn Suigetsu into a particularly cranky paleta.

Zabuza waved a hand dismissively before Haku had a chance to answer. Haku was actually looking slightly unimpressed by Suigetsu over that reply. It seemed like they were having some teamwork issues, to put it mildly. "Choujuurou shouldn't need to follow the Houzuki kid everywhere."

"I'm old enough to look after myself, Zabuza-sama," Suigetsu gritted out. "I'm not a kid."

"No, you're a little bloodthirsty demon all on your own. It just can't be inside this village."

Suigetsu opened his mouth to make a retort, but looked like he thought better of it.

"So you _weren't_ supposed to be beating up other Kiri-nin?" Sakura asked, putting her hands on her hips. She seemed to have mostly recovered from her earlier shock, if she was willing to be disapproving like that again.

Suigetsu stared at her with a mix of upset and rising anger, but before he could speak up, Zabuza began to laugh.

"No more temper tantrums because your nii-san isn't around to help you clean them up?" Zabuza asked, still laughing. "As long as you keep it non-fatal, I won't have a problem. _We're_ not trying to be the 'Bloody Mist', after all." Normal aggression was completely fine, though, it seemed.

Suigetsu's hands curled into fists. "Understood, Zabuza-sama."

Apparently deciding to ignore all of this, Kakashi spoke up. Probably to try to defuse the situation, I could only guess. "I might as well tell you three now. I nominated Team Seven for the exams. I'll give you the paperwork eventually."

Shikamaru looked at Kakashi, and then at us, with an expression of extreme doubt on his face. He wasn't bothering to _voice_ it— in front of Team Seven's jounin-sensei and then the foreign-nin— but it was extremely clear what he was thinking.

"You guys? Really?" Chouji asked, holding the bag from the mini-shop close to his chest. "Aren't they supposed to be dangerous sometimes? If you three are going to be in it, did Asuma-sensei nominate us, too?"

Ino was biting down on her lip, looking between Chouji and Kakashi. She almost looked like she wanted to say something, but was holding back for whatever reason.

Kakashi held his hands up, to forestall any more questions from them. "They can sometimes be dangerous. As for your team, I'm not the one to ask. Only the jounin-sensei of the genin teams in question are supposed to be the ones announcing whether they were nominated or not." That was oddly vocally normative for him, but we still had a large audience, and Kakashi was probably on thin-ice to begin with when it came to creative interpretation.

Shikamaru sighed. "This is too troublesome. C'mon, let's go," he said, to Chouji and Ino. "So much for a 'morning off' and 'easy day'," he groused.

"Huh?" Ino went. She blinked, before she turned to look at Shikamaru. "Yeah, sure." She didn't sound particularly enthusiastic. She held a hand up, to give a small wave goodbye. "It was nice to meet you, Suigetsu-kun. Stop by the flower shop later, Sakura?" She eyed Zabuza and Haku awkwardly, apparently unsure of what to say or do. Meeting a foreign kage— especially one who was self-anointed but somehow had enough people with him and backing to warrant being dealt with on a political level instead— and their student was probably beyond even Ino's mien to handle.

"Oh, sure," Sakura answered. "I hope your team got nominated for the exams, too."

Ino gave a thin, unsure-looking smile. "Me too."

Chouji gave a shrug. "Thanks for showing us that shop, Naruto," he said. "We should stop by there again and try a bunch of the weird flavors together."

Naruto beamed. "Yeah! Just not that weird peppermint one you got." His smile faltered at the idea. My stomach fluttered uncomfortably at the idea of actually eating it.

"Nah, I'll make Shikamaru try it with me."

"What? No way. I'm out of here," Shikamaru said. "Bye." He left, going at a fast paced walk. Probably to get away from the peppermint potato chips.

With that, the rest of Team Ten left, before they could manage to lose Shikamaru to him speeding ahead for what was probably the first time in their lives.

"Now that we've found my genin and one of your lost ninja," Kakashi said, very carefully, "why don't we return to the inn your delegation is staying at?"

"You don't like the show?" Zabuza asked, snorting, as he motioned at the onlookers. His words travelled far enough to successfully shame a handful of ninja on a balcony overhanging the street, who exchanged glances with each other before leaping off in the opposite direction.

"Not really," Kakashi said, toneless.

Zabuza shrugged. "Works with me. Your Hokage would probably feel better with me off of his streets." He sounded amused. "I should probably make sure the rest of them know you'll be our point of contact while we're here. We don't want more 'incidents'."

Suigetsu didn't look too happy at the idea. Neither, for that matter, did Kakashi or Sakura.

Naruto cast a longing glance at the paper bag with our lunch that Sakura was still holding. "Could we join you later? We kinda got food and I'd really like to eat first..."

Kakashi sighed. "Fine," he said. Kakashi was clearly suffering more than he usually did. It was kind of fascinating to watch, in a masochistic sort of way.

"Zabuza-sama, do you mind if I join them?" Haku politely asked, looking up at the older ninja. "While I'm sure Suigetsu-kun would be able to lead them to where we're staying, it would be nice to catch up with Naruto-kun and his friends."

"Go," was Zabuza's response.

It sounded more like an order than a real answer, but the polite smile Haku had been wearing most of the time turned into a more genuine one, just slightly more upturned at the corners of his mouth and reaching his eyes. Haku didn't waste any time in moving to stand by Naruto, who immediately beamed upwards at the older boy.

Suigetsu's shoulders slumped, and he sucked in one cheek in obvious annoyance. Someone's plans had been ruined, I guessed.

"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said, enthusiastic and earnest. I had a strong suspicion that today would be a high-ranking one for Naruto, if he was the sort to do that. Food— even if it wasn't ramen, since Kakashi off probation meant he wouldn't have to scrimp as much for the near future— and friends. Including a new one, though I think if Suigetsu was aware that by being willing to stay in Naruto's vicinity he was signing up for that particular friendship he would have bolted at the start. As it was, it was probably already too late for him.

Now that that was settled, Naruto took off, happily chattering to Haku and Suigetsu about different things about the village that managed to be informative but completely useless for hostile or sinister intent at the same time. It was mostly to do with what places had good prices for cheap foods, the different flavors of cup ramen he had found at one shop, the time he had accidentally bought a whole fish because of some misunderstanding— which made Sakura shoot him a look of confusion— and various stories of times he had skipped out from the academy or had pulled a prank on unsuspecting members of the village, whether they were ninja or civilian.

Suigetsu was looking increasingly baffled as to how Naruto had earned his hitai-ate in the first place.

Sakura kept shooting what were supposed to be discreet looks at Haku and Suigetsu, before she finally pulled me off to the side, following the others from a short distance.

"Did we—" she cut herself off, before she actually finished her sentence, and waved vaguely at Haku and Suigetsu, a plaintive expression on her face.

"I think so," was all I said.

Sakura gave me an alarmed look. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

I shrugged back.

She made a sound of frustration, and lapsed into silence.

"Hey, why are you guys back there?" Naruto asked, turning his head towards us, as he led us down another street. "We're almost there, it's right around—"

"Naruto, pay attention to where you're—" Sakura attempted to warn.

"Huh?" Naruto almost walked into one of the light poles at the corner, only narrowly being gently pushed out of the way by Haku. Unfortunately, he tripped and sprawled.   
  
"—going," Sakura ended, flat-toned.

"You think Konoha wouldn't just leave their trash lying around," a disdainful teenaged boy's voice said, speaking up.

I turned towards the sound of the voice. Whatever else was going on with this dream, it was almost reassuring to see the Sand siblings show up, if not in the same way as the series. The only odd part was Baki was with them— or at least it was until I realized that they were in front of a storefront that had posters up saying it sold 'Authentic Konoha Goods', with some tables and a shopkeeper out in front. I wasn't sure if the idea of some of them _souvenir hunting_ made more sense or less, until I noticed that only Temari and Baki actually looked like they had done any kind of shopping. Gaara was staring at us— no, Haku and Suigetsu, I corrected— unnervingly and unblinking. Kankurou looked like a very typical grumpy teenager forced into an unwanted shopping trip, even with all the facepaint.

"You shouldn't be so impolite to other genin," Haku said, smiling, as he offered a hand up to Naruto, who took it and got back up on his feet. It didn't meet his eyes. "We're all here to participate and foster good relationships between our villages, aren't we? It'd be a shame if you managed to fail at that single-handedly."

Kankurou's eyes darted to look at the symbol on Haku's hitai-ate. "Since when was _Kiri_ participating in this exam?"

"We arrived with the Mizukage early this morning," Haku answered serenely.

"Wait, where are you from?" Naruto asked. He looked at Kankurou with a momentary grumpy look on his face, before he looked back to where Temari, Baki, and Gaara were. When his eyes set on Gaara, a rare and dangerous expression lit up on his face. Naruto was thinking. It almost immediately shifted into an eager one of delight, and Naruto suddenly started to move in Gaara's direction, only to be blocked by a suddenly angry and fearful looking Kankurou.

"What do you think you're doing!?" he half-shouted, as she shoved Naruto back.

  
"Hey! Hey!" Naruto yelled over Kankurou's shoulder. "You! With the red hair! What's your name?"

Gaara only stared at Naruto, his expression having not changed at all. There was the faintest sound of sand shifting, and the lightest touch of grit as sand pulled itself from the road and the sandals I was wearing. It was like the initial flutter of movement that sometimes came before the first blast of a spring sandstorm, but the lack of a breeze only made it feel unsettling.

I wasn't the only one who noticed it, it seemed; Temari shifted, moving out of a neutral standing position as she looked at Gaara warily, and Baki, his face hard, stepped forward. Sakura yanked Naruto away from Kankurou. Suigetsu was looking at the Suna-nin with poorly-disguised alarm written on his face. Haku appeared perfectly calm.

To my surprise— and everyone else's— Gaara replied to him. "Gaara."

Naruto looked visibly disappointed. "Just Gaara? Oh. I heard that Uzumaki usually had red hair and that's my family name and…" He left the sentence drift off, a rare bout of self-consciousness boring down on him. "I just thought…"

"Sunagakure is a very long way from where Uzushio used to be," Baki spoke. His words sounded carefully picked and neutral, especially with the tension in the air in mind. "It's doubtful any member of that clan would have travelled that far."

Kankurou stared at Naruto for a moment. "You actually thought—" He burst into slightly hysterical laughter, unable to finish what he was saying.

A hand slapped onto his shoulder in warning made him stop. "Stop taunting the foreign-nin, Kankurou," Temari said. "I'm Temari, and this is our jounin-sensei, Baki. Who are you all?" She blushed lightly.

I immediately decided to at least pretend it was Haku who had caused _that_.

"Houzuki Suigetsu," Suigetsu answered shortly. He was still looking at them with concern— Gaara most of all. At some point in the last couple of minutes he had gone from being near the front of the group to standing behind Haku.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto," Naruto said, managing to scrape most of the cheer that he had lost back into his voice. "And these are my teammates, Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke."

I was beginning to really get tired of the repeat staring that brought. Unfortunately for me, Temari only blushed even more at finding out 'my' name. Considering she was actually a teenager and a few years older than Sasuke, it just added another layer of weird to the whole thing.

Haku looked at the Suna-nin with some consideration on his face. "You're the Kazekage's children, aren't you?" Temari looked startled at the comment; apparently that connection wasn't supposed to be made by most people here. Even the casual way Haku had mentioned it had resulted in attention on this street suddenly focusing even more on us than it already was. "My name is Haku; Zabuza-sama—" he caught himself, "the Mizukage— and I are supposed to meet with your father when he arrives here."

Baki's expression immediately shifted into one of consternation, frowning, despite the fact that he had shown no sign of being put off just moments earlier at the possibility of Gaara being set off by Naruto. "You're part of the missing-nin group that's appeared in Wave."

Haku only smiled. "We are fully sanctioned and funded by the Daimyo of Wave with his blessing instead of operating by force. That is more than Karatachi Yagura can say of his village in Water."

Baki looked like he regretted making that comment.

"I think that makes us more deserving of calling ourselves Kirigakure, don't you? I hope we will be able to find allies in both Konoha and Suna's leadership." His smile showed teeth this time.

Temari looked uncomfortable at the comment, shifting uneasily where she stood, and exchanged a glance with an unsure-looking Kankurou before finally speaking. "I'm sure O-tou-san and your... Zabuza-sama will be able to have a long conversation." She seemed reluctant to actually call Zabuza Mizukage; whether it was more a fit of impoliteness because Haku had outed them like that or not wanting to accidentally affirm Haku's claims from what could end up being seen as validation from the Kazekage was the question.

While Haku didn't seem to be _thriving_ off of it in the same way as Zabuza, he was still showing skill in saying the exact sort of things to push buttons and catch attention. It was _supposed to_ , I realized. They were probably aiming not just to make as many people know before the chuunin exams actually started, but between actively putting to words not just the ability to question the validity of Yagura's rule and the original Kiri's legitimacy but put it into people's heads in the first place… It would be, in reality, incredibly risky politics to get away with. I wondered exactly how good at understanding politics most ninja would actually be, before I decided that it was a dumb thought to even have in the first place, dreaming about it or not.

Regardless, he was putting the Suna-nin, with the exception of Gaara, into a position where they were only looking more and more uncomfortable looking with the maneuvering he was using.

"I'm bored of this," Gaara announced, which startled his siblings into actual nervousness. "There's no point to talking about any of it."

"Uh, yeah," Kankurou said, in what had to be the most interesting combination of frayed nerves and actual relief that I had ever considered. "You're right."

"We were already done here anyways," Temari said, her attention split between looking at Gaara and Haku; she clearly wasn't entirely sure of what to make of the other teen. "We were going to return where we were staying, weren't we, Baki-sensei?" With that, she smoothly shoved responsibility onto the only adult.

"If any of you are taking part in the chuunin exams, I wish you the success you deserve," Baki said, which Gaara seemed to take as a cue for being able to leave, forcing his siblings to follow in his wake.

This was at least something Naruto could actually understand. Or at least partially understand. "Yeah! We're gonna be there! And we're gonna win!" Naruto shouted at their retreating figures. He dropped his voice to be slightly quieter. "This is something we can win, right?"

The last thing we could hear from the Suna-nin was Kankurou loudly asking, "How the hell did an idiot like that get nominated?" before they turned down another street, and were completely out of view and hearing.

"Can we quit before it starts?" Suigetsu asked, still staring at the spot we had last seen them. "There's something wrong with that red-headed kid."

"Yeah, he was kinda weird," Naruto agreed. "Maybe he didn't get enough sleep or something. He looked kinda tired, didn't he?"

"Weird isn't the right word," Suigetsu grumbled.

"We're not quitting," Haku answered, voice firm. "He is someone to watch out for, though, I agree. They might have a jounin leader, but Baki wasn't the one making the decisions. Their focus was on keeping him placated. When Naruto-kun approached them too quickly, the jounin's attention was focused on Gaara."

"I didn't agree to this to get killed by some Suna creep…" Suigetsu leaned over in a slouch, voice sulky.

"Do you really think he's that dangerous?" Sakura asked, looking between the two of them.

"They can't _really_ do anything if they're here for the exams, can they? And c'mon, if we keep stopping like this, we're _never_ going to get to eat." Naruto shrugged, and started to walk again. "I'm starving, I skipped breakfast." As if to underpin it, his stomach actually gurgled.

"We were told before we left that the chuunin exams _can_ be fatal," Haku explained. "It's not always due to the other genin, but Zabuza-sama made selections for who would come with that in mind. The original Kirigakure wasn't planning to send anyone to this season's exams in order to prepare for a stronger show in the next one, but since they've found out we were coming..." Haku smiled. "Any genin teams they send this time will be either unprepared or will be chuunin young enough to easily pass as genin."

Sakura blinked in surprise. "Why would they send chuunin?"

"Because of us," Suigetsu answered. "That and to spy on everyone else, but mostly us. If they beat or kill us, they think it will eliminate most of the threat we pose." He snorted at the idea. 

"Suigetsu-kun is actually the youngest member of our delegation, but he's already very skilled. His older brother used to be a member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist alongside Zabuza-sama."

Naruto's attention immediately became directed at Suigetsu. "Hey, hey, you have a brother? Is he cool like Zabuza?"

The white-haired boy stiffened, and, glowering at Naruto, icily said, "My brother's _dead_."

Naruto grimaced, and held his hands up in apology. "Sorry, sorry. He must have been, though, right?"

"Just shut up," Suigetsu snapped.

All conversation died off, and Naruto didn't say anything even when we finally reached the park.

* * *

I woke up the couch again, with my phone on my chest.

I stared at my phone, trying to force my brain into thinking. Friday. I didn't have to do anything today. No class. Nothing for the English department. Nothing for the college. Not even any grad events.

I clawed the fuzzy blanket that hung over the side of the couch down, not even bothering to sit up, and immediately went back to sleep, occasionally waking up from the work being done near my building, and when the sun shifted and hit me in the face.

I napped until late afternoon, and even then was still exhausted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doing NaNoWriMo? [ Come join me on discord for writing sprints!](https://discord.gg/xZrqJC6)


	10. The Wolves Are Watching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things become serious with the first test of the exams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to the ever lovely Tavina for her usual efforts as beta-reader. All errors this time are entirely on me for not waiting for the other betas. 
> 
> As a note, beginning with this chapter I've shifted spelling conventions. After finals I will be going back and updating the previous chapters to match.
> 
> It belatedly occurs to me that I need to mention that while the OC (and Ino) are going off of from the anime (especially for things Ino shouldn't know), for the fic itself I am going from the manga where there are contradictions.

"This is my fourth year." There was something about that delivery that made me angry that was the first thing I had to hear this time. Maybe it was the way it reminded me of the stuck up senior undergrad in the class I TA'd who casually tried to use his few years advantage to show off that he actually had no idea what he was talking about or something else, but it irked me entirely. The fact that _Kabuto_ was a ridiculously impactful villain in the series barely made a difference.

The exam hall was crowded, filled with enough bodies that I couldn't help but imagine how warm it would be if it was real. In a hall this size, without anything but the most powerful air conditioning, even a winter day would become uncomfortably stultifying from the heat. I had a hard time believing that a ninja village would have effective air conditioning. This was the first time I wanted a refund on these dreams for less dramatic reasons, but it also reminded me that I probably should fish out my portable unit when I woke up if I was actually dreaming about overheating. It was starting to get warm for real, and my apartment complex, to my eternal woe, didn't check the built-in units and turn them on until late April.

"Are we supposed to be impressed by that?" I asked. Next to me, Kiba barely stifled a snort. Even with everything that had gone off course so far with these dreams, it looked like the gathering of the rookie teams was inevitable for this exam. While most of them looked nervous to some degree or another, Ino looked like she was holding back on something. She wasn't trying to get into my space, so I was more than willing to accept whatever it was.

Kabuto looked taken back; given that he was a good several years older than the 'Rookie Nine', he probably hadn't expected any kind of blow back or commentary on his own capabilities. Not with such a significant age difference. "What? I know about most configurations of the exam for the last four years as it's been held by not just Konoha, but the other villages."

"Then why are you still here?" I looked up at him. The gray hair didn't exactly help me pin how old he actually was supposed to be and I never cared enough to remember most of the ages the characters were supposed to be. "You're what, twenty? If the average academy graduation age is twelve, and this is your fourth year of taking the exams, then that's another four years before you were even considered to be nominated, isn't it? Is your advice actually going to be that useful?"

My comments were changing the reaction he was getting. "Wow, even Iruka-sensei made chūnin faster, and he kept talking about how hard it is to make it an' stuff," Naruto said loudly. That seemed slightly unfair to Iruka, considering I doubted he was teaching as a genin and by all indicators had been in charge of Naruto's class since they were originally matriculated. "You must _suck_."

Laughter tore through the rest of the room, with mentions of Kabuto's name occasionally loud enough to hear. "Even the Leaf rookies know he's a joke!" someone shouted from nearby.

Kabuto flushed red. With some anger radiating from his body language he reached into the pouch hanging from his back and pulled out his deck of cards. "You don't think it's that useful? Let me prove it. I already know who _you_ are, Uchiha Sasuke."

"That's kinda creepy," Shikamaru said, under his breath.

"These cards of mine have information burnt into them using chakra. I know how many genin are here, from what villages… among other things. Only I can reveal it." He quickly shuffled them, before plucking a card out, seemingly at random. If it weren't for the fact that this was such a basic trick, it would have been more impressive. "Here you are." Kabuto held it up for all of us to see, visibly pulsing chakra into it.

The tiny photo of Sasuke on the card wasn't _scowling_ per se, but his expression was still somewhere in the range of 'resting bitch face'. In some sort of alternate universe, it would have necessitated school photo retakes. I was very familiar with that kind of misfortune.

Shino pressed a finger to one side of his sunglasses, just slightly tilting them downward to get a better look at the card. I still couldn't see his eyes. "Genin teammates and jōnin leader, known mission numbers, estimated ability for taijutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu, ninja tools, and kekkei genkai…" He looked up at Kabuto. "Do you have these on all of us?"

"I have a card on every single genin in this room," Kabuto said with a smile.

Shino pushed his sunglasses firmly back up on the bridge of his nose. "I see. May I take a look at the card?"

"Of course," Kabuto answered. He reached out with it towards Shino.

Instead of taking a hold of it, iridescent blackness emerged from his sleeve, spreading down to Shino's fingertips and crossing the short distance between his and Kabuto's hands. Kabuto shouted in surprise, and stepped back in shock, but it was to no avail. The card disappeared under the kikaichū as they first covered it, but it soon became apparent they weren't going to bring it to Shino; instead, they went from covering its rectangular shape to sinking down in a mass. The card no longer was extant and the insects quickly flowed back to their owner, no longer in sight.

The whole thing had happened in the span of seconds. "Thank you," Shino said.

For the briefest of moments— easy to miss— an ugly expression crossed Kabuto's face.

Shino looked at his teammates. Kiba looked disconcerted enough that Akamaru was trying to comfort him, nuzzling against him from the puppy's position in his coat, and Hinata was pressing her fingertips together nervously. "Let's go sit down," he said. At no point had Shino's tone ever changed, and before anyone had the chance to speak, he walked away.

"Yeah, sure," Kiba said, staring at his teammate's retreating figure. "Good luck, or something." He sprinted to catch up.

Hinata's eyes darted to look at Naruto. "Um, good luck, Naruto-kun. Oh, and everyone else, too…" she said, before trailing off to join the two boys.

Kabuto was still staring at me.

"So you have cheat cards," I said, looking right back at him. He actually flinched at the word. "How much does it actually help? Just because it's written down doesn't mean it's going to do you any good if you aren't able to actually synthesize the information correctly, much less understand it in the first place." I flicked my eyes back to the deck, the memory of Shino's bugs at the top of my thoughts. "Especially when you're trying to quantify things that can't necessarily be quantified. Unless you're comfortable with making things up to justify whatever biases you have."

Somehow, that got Shikamaru's interest. "Ninja in the field aren't like shogi pieces," he said, though it sounded more like he was repeating something, and suddenly squaring it against what was playing out in front of him. It would figure it would be how it would apply to game strategy. "Maybe it could work with genin, but I think we're seeing what the answer to that is."

"A resounding 'no'?" Ino asked. She looked unsettled, but then again, Shino's use of his bugs had been mildly disturbing just now. Chōji had put his bag of chips away.

"I'm sorry I offered to help you all out, then," Kabuto said, frostily. "I hope you don't end up regretting it."

"Yeah, yeah," went Naruto. His attention had never completely settled on Kabuto's attempt to show off. "Hey, I think I see Haku near the front. Let's go say hi." He ambled off.

Sakura rolled her eyes, but glanced at Kabuto. "Thank you for your offer anyway, Kabuto-san." It was her usual politeness, but just barely.

With the shortest of farewells to Team Ten, Sakura and I caught up with Naruto, and just barely in time. Despite how short the walk was, he stopped suddenly, staring in the direction of someone or something on the other side of the room.

Sakura immediately caught hold of his elbow. "Oh no you don't, we're not going through this again," she said, testily. "Once was bad enough!"

I turned to see what it was.

The bright red hair stood out even from here. Karin. She was supposed to be here originally, wasn't she? Either way, the fact all three of us were looking in her direction ended up catching her attention, and she stared back. Karin was soon blushing a red that was bright enough to match the color of her hair and eyes before she ducked away from looking at us. The attention was apparently too much.

"Ugh, see what you did, Naruto?" Sakura said, smacking him lightly on the shoulder. "That poor girl's embarrassed now because you decided to be weird. Not every single person with red hair could possibly be related to you."

"Yeah," he said, after a while, still staring at Karin's hair. "I guess you're right."

We didn't have the chance to get any further, because the lights in the ceiling dimmed and then were blacked out entirely. I looked up and immediately regretted it. The light fixtures were covered by a shimmering, moving morass that soon covered the ceiling, which left the windows against the one wall as the only light source. It was nightmarish and I wasn't even afraid of insects.

Shouts of surprise broke out.

"What the fuck?"

"Who turned off the lights?!"

Someone screamed; he or she didn't sound just scared or surprised, but gripped by primal fear. Similar shouts and screams were also happening, if not to the same level of sheer and utter distress.

I suddenly became aware of a creeping, crawling, tickling sensation running up my legs and upwards. Given what was happening on the ceiling, I decided I did not want to look down, forcing myself to look at Sakura and Naruto. They looked spooked and unsure as they turned to look around at the other genin in the room, who were largely growing increasingly panicked or upset. "Don't look," I said. "Really, really don't look."

Sakura took in a deep, shuddering breath, and closed her eyes to concentrate better. "It's not a genjutsu." She sounded unhappy at coming to that conclusion.

Naruto was staring at my head. "Uh… There's a—"

" _I_ _don't want to know._ "

There was a burst of smoke in the front of the room, which only sent more cries of surprise up. The chūnin proctors looked the same as far as I could tell; I remembered the one with the face bandage and his bandana-wearing partner at least, though their names escaped me. Even when I used to, I could never tell which was which between them. The jōnin in charge was not the same.

The high collared coat was a tip-off— along with the swarming mass of insects in the room— that he was an Aburame, but I couldn't see him properly from where I was. I leaned around Naruto to get a better look, which at least gave me a better idea.

I was at least able to recognize the hair and sunglasses as being sort of unique. Shino's father seemed to be in charge now. I wondered what it meant that he was here instead of Ibiki. I was also completely blanking on his name, but I _knew_ I knew it.

"My name is Aburame Shibi," he announced. "I will be the examiner in charge for this first test to determine your potential selections as chūnin."

So _that_ was it.

"If you'll reach into your sleeves, pockets or pouches, you'll find a tab with your assigned seat number. After everyone is seated, the proctors will pass the exams out." As he said that, I realized the crawling sensations had mostly diminished and there was something in my right arm protector.

The chūnin behind him all held up large envelopes.

Naruto squawked in protest and looked between me and Sakura. "What am I supposed to do? I suck at paper tests!"

"Stay calm," I told him. I shook the foreign object out into my palm, and flipped it over. '16' was on it, engraved onto a white tile. "Panicking will just make it worse. You're not that dumb."

Shibi raised his arms up, and a buzzing noise slowly arose. The floor was soon covered in insects, moving downward from the crevasses of the desks and seats, emerging from folds of clothes, all moving in waves towards him. The ones that had covered the ceiling lights just flowed down, twisting and twining around the man's arms.They slowly disappeared down his sleeves, if they didn't move to go down the collar of his coat or the gourd that was resting against his back.

Someone started to audibly sob behind us. This final mass of insects was apparently the last straw for their ability to hold it in.

No one moved.

"The test," Shibi said, in a louder voice, "will begin when you are all seated, whether voluntarily or otherwise." A tendril of kikaichū rose from the gourd on his back.

After that, there was a frenzy of motion as everyone quickly tried to make their way to their assigned seats without actually clambering over the desks and seats. It seemed no one was all that interested in seeing _exactly_ what it would look or feel like to be carried around by however many insects that would take. I didn't want to take chances on finding out either; that just spelled a bad nightmare. I ended up sliding into the assigned seat, which was in the first row, right by the windows. At least it had been easy to find.

To my dismay, the person sitting on my right ended up being Neji.

I thought that he had completely escaped the impact of the fireball, but I was wrong. Neji's hair was now as short as Hinata's, the main difference being the lack of forelocks to frame his face. Instead, a few short locks of hair hung over the top of his hitai-ate. He glowered at me when I sat down.

I decided to ignore it.

As if to make matters worse, one of the Oto-nin ended up sliding into the spot on the left. His name completely escaped me, but I remembered that the one with the faceplate was the ruder one of the two boys, so of course I got saddled with him.

Maybe I shouldn't have ignored Neji after all.

"What are _you_ looking at?" the Sound-nin said.

Before I could answer, Neji spoke up. "Are you really the best your village was able to send? Otogakure must be desperate."

Whatever his name was, he scowled.

I turned to look around instead of letting myself get dragged into this. I had lucked out by being closer to the front and with a more obvious number to find. There were still plenty of others looking for their seats. To my amusement, Sakura had ended up sitting next to Karin, who had turned red again. Naruto was still looking for where he was supposed to be, and the rest of the Konoha Eleven were scattered throughout the room.

Angry shouts broke out from the right, which luckily distracted Neji and the Sound-nin from the increasingly sharp and rude conversation they were having around me that was more insult-filled than anything else.

The Kiri-nin were at it again. I recognized this one from the encounter with Suigetsu; he was the one who had been thrown into the street. He also had a bandage plastered in the middle of his forehead where Suigetsu had thrown one of his cohort's hitai-ate at his face.

"I refuse to sit next to this traitor!" he shouted. He was standing up in protest.

What was unmistakably Chōjūrō was sitting next to him. I wasn't sure what surprised me more; the fact that he was apparently a genin still, or that he already had his sword, which was leaning against the desk, bandaged up. He was staring at the other Kiri-nin in what was undeniable embarrassment, face flushed from the accusation.

"Shut _up_ , you idiot!" Suigetsu called from somewhere in the back of the room. "Do I need to throw you out of one of these windows, too?"

Smackings of laughter— some of it nervous— filled the air again, if not as much had happened for Kabuto.

Shibi turned his head towards the two teenagers. "The seat positions were randomized. Your protests are acknowledged but it will not change matters. If you _continue_ like this, I reserve the right to eject you and your team from the room and you will not progress."

An idea sprung to mind, and I stood up before the moment passed. "I wouldn't mind swapping with him, if that's allowed."

Shibi's attention shifted towards me. I felt the urge to squirm, but did my best to stay still. There was something undeniably unsettling about not actually being able to see his eyes or even be able to guess what was playing through his head, his expression neutral.

Finally, he spoke up. "I acknowledge your willingness to assist with keeping the peace, Uchiha-kun. You may switch places with examinee number three. I see no way that this will result in being beneficial to taking the exam for anyone." He turned his head to gaze at the whole hall. "

I slipped out of the row, passing by the Oto-nin, who tried— and failed— to trip me. I raised an eyebrow at him when I walked in front of the desk. He visibly simmered. He wasn't the only one. Neji's glare turned into an uglier look than it already was, and there was audible grumbling from the rest of the hall. The Kiri-nin squinted at me when we crossed, apparently unsure what to make of the fact I had volunteered and it had been granted. At least he was getting the same ugly looks.

I sat down next to Chōjūrō, who was visibly relieved, but wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Before any of you think I am being lenient, any further protests in a hope to improve your seating arrangement will result in an immediate removal from the room," Shibi said. "You have one more minute to make your way to your assigned seats."

In exchange for the special treatment, I was getting to have a target on my back. Delightful, though in retrospect I wasn't actually that surprised. Shakespeare's Shylock would be able to learn a thing or two about favors and demands from shinobi.

The chūnin proctors under Shibi dispersed, taking spots alongside the walls.

Shibi spoke, again, stepping back towards the chalkboard, where he picked up a piece of chalk. "I will now explain the rules of this exam." He started to write. "To begin, all examinees start with ten points. There are ten questions, worth a single point each. Unlike any tests that you may be used to, this one uses a subtraction system. Each incorrect answer results in the deduction of one point. Additionally, this will be by each genin team, rather than individual scores. Whether you pass or fail will be determined by your team's combined results." Shibi turned his gaze back out onto the crowd. "The final rule is the most important. Any genin who is caught cheating will have two points deducted per offense. Any team with an individual who loses all points will be escorted from the room. Any team with an individual who fails to answer any questions will be escorted from the room."

Shibi paused, staying silent as murmurs of fear and disbelief rippled through the room. Once it subsided, he motioned at the proctors, who opened their envelopes and began to pass the exams out. "Do not turn the test over until I give you permission," he intoned.

Eventually, all the tests must have been passed out. "You have one hour. I will announce how much time is left in fifteen minute increments. You may begin."

Filled with curiosity, I turned the paper over, trying to tune out the now-hiccuping sobbing that was still happening a few rows somewhere behind me.

A code puzzle, trigonometry and algebra questions, and a critical reading question were on the other side. Most of them were just ninja-flavored, but the core was there. While my math was rusty where trig was concerned, nothing on the page looked absurdly difficult. Then again, I was a few months short of turning twenty-eight. I had a bachelor's degree under my belt and a handful of years of working finance spreadsheets working in a job field that was completely out of my degree. I was even doing graduate level courses for my master's right now. The vast majority of the test takers in this room were closer to ten than they were to twenty. None of them even had the advantage of an education that was probably much beyond middle school material.

Of course, if all else remained the same, it wouldn't really matter; the tenth question was what was going to actually determine this exam. I vaguely wondered if Naruto would end up making the same passionate speech as he did in the series. While he was different— just a little more deliberate, just a little more willing to think through his actions, and what those of others might mean— he was still passionate about his goals and pushing others towards their own. The question was more if Naruto would feel riled up by Shibi. He didn't seem to have the same delight in being an asshole to children that Ibiki did.

"Examinee number eighty-six, please stop crying. You're distracting the others."

Even with trying to get someone who apparently had entomophobia to calm down he wasn't going full asshole when it would have been extremely easy to do so.

I idly tapped the end of the pencil against the paper for a few moments as I tried to decide what to do. Ultimately, none of it really mattered. Or at least, didn't matter to my _real_ life. Mostly. It was impossible to deny that the _dreams_ were changing. Even if it didn't make me particularly happy, and gave increasing cause to doubt my sanity.

If nothing else, I was curious enough to at least try.

I started to scribble the half-remembered math formulas I thought I might need on the margins of the paper, trying to forcibly remember what I could from my last math class, almost eight years ago. 

The whole time, occasionally examinees were called out for using up all of their chances, getting themselves and their teammates evicted from the room.

It wasn't long until a commotion started up. I turned to look back, just in time for him to get held up against the wall by a chūnin whose eyes were covered by bandages and his hitai-ate. As best as I could recall, it was the same guy who protested in the series. I guessed that even in this dream, he was still an idiot.

I ended up turning the paper over with thirty minutes still on the clock, still not entirely sure about the trigonometry question.

Next to me, Chōjūrō quietly groaned at the fact that I had finished ahead of him. The proctor against the wall nearest us snorted in amusement.

I laced my hands together, palms up, and stared at them.

Sasuke's hands were different, from the fingers that were still partially childish but showed the promise of becoming slender to the lines on his palms that weren't like my own. There were calluses, from very different kinds of activities. I didn't have any these days. Even the ones I had the longest from learning- and then playing— the guitar had long faded. All I had these days were the occasional stubborn ink stains, from taking notes and writing, and sometimes a scribble from a pen that refused to work the first time.

It was sobering to think about.

Eventually, the forty-five minutes passed, and Shibi looked out at the whole hall, instead of having his attention focused on one spot or another like I had noticed earlier. "It is now time for the final question," he announced. "There are additional rules for this question that did not apply earlier."

All of the attention in the room was now focused entirely on him, and it was as quiet as any filled room could get.

It was quiet enough to hear the door open. "Examinee number one hundred twenty-two, please take your puppet and sit down."

That must have been Kankurō, trying the same trick that he originally used in the series.

"You all must decide whether or not you are willing to answer this question or not. If you choose not to, all remaining points will be eliminated, and you fail, along with your teammates. You will remain genin, and nothing changes in your lives."

"If you take it, however, you open yourselves to fates worse than death." _That_ was new. Maybe Shino's dad wasn't so mild after all.

A murmur rose through the room. There were no outbursts of confusion or anger. Shibi didn't seem to have the same flare for the dramatic that Ibiki did, and it was resulting in different reactions, even with the volatile personalities I was aware of in here.

"If you do not wish to continue, please raise your hand. When a proctor calls out your number, you and your team will be dismissed."

I couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like people stood up faster than they did for Ibiki in the anime. None of them were Kiri-nin, I noticed. I wondered if in the case of the ones who still gave their loyalty to the original it was because they were already used to that sort of situation.

Naruto, still predictable in at least _this_ sense, stood up. He was all the way in the back, almost in the last row. "I refuse to be afraid! What's the point of being ninja if we're so afraid that we stay genin? They aren't just gonna look at us an' decide to take it easy on us just because we're genin. I won't run, and I won't back down! If I give up like this, there's no way I'll ever be able to become Hokage!"

Shibi said nothing, but his attention was clearly focused on Naruto, as was everyone else's.

"I will _never_ go back on my word. That's my nindō."

The clock on the wall ticked away. No more numbers were called.

Eventually, the full hour finished.

"Well done on passing the first test," Shibi said, finally.

"What?" That was Sakura. She sounded more shocked than anything else. Turning around, I was able to see that she was several rows behind me.

"That was it?! What sort of bullshit is this?" Suigetsu. In _his_ case, somewhat angry seemed to be his current baseline, and he liked to complain, so I doubted he was actually that upset.

"There were two purposes to this test," Shibi answered. "The first was to determine your capability to gather information as a unit. Whether you cooperated, delegated, or did your best to minimize what negative impacts you could have on your teammates, there are a variety of strategies that suit different units as they operate in the field.

"The questions on this test were selected in order to be past what the average genin or even chūnin would be able to answer, and encourage cheating. Embedded among you were chūnin who knew the answers. There were also a number of you who were capable of answering on your own."

The chūnin against the wall closest to me snorted again.

"This also happens on missions. Sometimes, you will discover one of your comrades will have the information you need by chance.

"The original proctor for this exam no doubt intended for this to be an object lesson on intelligence being more important than your own lives will be. I prefer to see it as one that explains the value of each member of a unit. As chūnin, you will be put in the position of having to decide whether the sacrifice of a person or your team is worth a mission's success, or if its failure is acceptable."

"There will be times ahead of you as chūnin where your own knowledge or abilities will sometimes be worth more to the enemy than the information you were sent to extract. Failure to make the correct decision then and there will result in a fate worse than death.

"Occasionally, there is no right answer except for being able to make a decision. Crucial intelligence can change the tide of war or if war will begin in the first place, but the loss of a comrade can be a significant boon to the enemy due to their skills being vital for village efforts or possessing a valuable kekkei genkai or ability.

"Knowledge does not always remove fear. Possession of ignorance does not guarantee safety. If you are unable to push ahead and make a decision from the knowledge you possess, even when it informs you that there is no good choice, you do not have the qualities required to become a chūnin."

Even though I half-expected it, at no point did Naruto speak up again to loudly congratulate himself or otherwise interject that he knew all these things. Was he really that different? I suppose he had to be.

"As you progress past this first test, you should keep all of this in mind for your futures, not just for the duration of the exam." Shibi turned towards the board, and stepping past the section where he had written the rules prior to this, started to write.

Not wanting to be surprised, I looked towards the windows, but disappointment was the only response. There were no broken windows, no Anko speedily rolling in with a banner to dramatically display.

"The next portion of the exam will begin tomorrow morning," Shibi said, as he turned around again to face us. "You will report at the village gates at ten. Any hostile action taken against your fellow examinees between now and that muster time will not only instantly disqualify you, but result in serious consequences."

That part was probably just as well.

"When your numbers are called, you are dismissed."

They ended up going in numerical order. Chōjūrō, several ahead of me, turned towards me with a grateful expression on his face. "Thank you for volunteering to swap earlier, Sasuke-kun. I appreciate it."

It made sense that he would know Sasuke's name, I decided, between Kakashi's mission and the fact that Team Seven had been included, even though I suspected that with the exam that part was probably on pause. "You're welcome," I answered, with a shrug.

When his number was called, he stood up, picking up his sword. He didn't bother to holster it, instead resting the wide bladed sword over his shoulder. I watched him leave, and noticed that Suigetsu was visibly angry— no, upset— when he watched the blue-haired teen pass by. It was different from his reactions to the Kiri-nin. They were only frustrating to him. Watching him as Chōjūrō left, however, showed a whole raft of conflicting emotions visibly flow over Suigetsu.

Shortly after that, my number was called. I left the room, looking over who was still present. The Konoha Eleven were still here, except for Neji. The Oto-nin had made it through, as did the team from Kusa that Orochimaru had used to get into the second test in the show. There were a surprising amount of sour-looking Kiri-nin in here still besides Suigetsu.

I tried my best to ignore a furiously blushing Karin at one of the seats closest to the door when I exited.

To my surprise, Kakashi was outside, leaning against the corridor wall, reading. Chōjūrō stood not too far away from him, his sword holstered. The teen was standing up against the window, looking out into the village with some interest.

Kakashi shifted in a move that I'd almost call awkward if it wasn't him as he unfolded to stand, lowering the book away from his face. It wasn't his usual Icha Icha this time, but I didn't get a good look at the cover before he put it away.

"Well," he began. "I see the three of you passed."

"Were you waiting out here the whole time?" I asked.

He didn't answer. Instead, he stretched slightly. "I'm here as an escort. There were a few… incidents this morning with both groups from Kiri."

Chōjūrō straightened, self-consciously. "The guy who was sitting next to me before you swapped is angry because his sensei decided to join Zabuza-sama," he said. He was so subdued sounding I could barely hear him. "His team has no choice but to join us now, if they don't want to be considered missing-nin once they leave here." He looked guilty over that, even though he really had no reason to.

That was harsh. Then again, Kiri.

"They probably wouldn't last that long on their own as missing-nin genin," I said, as the door opened behind me.

"Shut your mouth _, Uchiha,"_ the aforementioned Kiri genin spoke up. "I have family to worry about besides myself."

That was probably supposed to hurt.

"If you're so worried about consequences, why are you wasting your time fighting people here about it instead of sending a message home _before_ it gets back that you've defected?" I asked.

The genin stared at me, visibly gobsmacked for a moment before he turned and started to harass Kakashi. "Hey! You! Jōnin-san! Can we do that?"

Kakashi looked like he regretted my existence again. Just this time there was no ocean to think about dumping me into. "I'll look into it," he answered. "For now though, you and your teammates are supposed to accompany me."

The genin looked visibly relieved at this, but not enough to be polite enough to thank Kakashi.

As genin continued to stream out of the room, one by one, Kakashi occasionally stopped some of the departing Kiri-nin, forcing them to wait along the corridor.

A pattern began to develop. The ones who were originally part of Zabuza's contingent seemed to already be aware of this planned escort, and walked to where Chōjūrō was standing, occasionally shooting glances at the other Kiri genin who were now part of their number, if unwillingly.

Then there were the ones who were now part of it whether they liked it or not, lumped in with bandage-head. Two of them were clearly his teammates, making them the set who had tried to hassle Suigetsu and got their asses handed to them. They were clearly resentful of not having any choice in the matter.

Then there was the third group, one I hadn't realized would even be a thing at all. The first one was lanky teenaged boy who gave the slowly accumulating second group a smirk that was poorly disguising the pity in his eyes. Kakashi held an arm out, blocking him from going any further down the hall. "Tomomi of Team Yosuke? Your circumstances have changed."

"What?" The look of bravado dropped entirely, replaced by fear. "No. No. We were in there for an hour! What do you mean, _changed?_ You're lying. You have to be. This is some kind of twisted plot from you Konoha-nin. _"_

"It means," Kakashi slowly said, staring down at the teenager with his one visible eye, "you have two choices. You can leave on your own and go off to the fate you would expect would come to a genin-level missing-nin without any protection. Or you can wait here with the others, leave this building under my protection, be able to collect whatever things you brought with you, and relocate to the lodging the Wave delegation is staying in. You might even live through the whole of the exams. It's your decision."

Tomomi swallowed, and slunk off to stand off on his own a distance away.

The rest of the Kiri-nin who were from Water became obvious after that, because they visibly shied away every time one of them entered the corridor and saw Tomomi and, once they joined him, his teammates. Tomomi's teammates were not the only ones to end up like this, with a second team joining them.

Sakura left the room after a few others, and after giving Kakashi a cautious look, went to stand by me, to watch the slow acquisition of Kiri-nin. She flicked her eyes at Kakashi meaningfully when she made eye contact with me. His poor mood was obvious to her, too.

After a while, I started to notice something. Chōjūrō looked to be the oldest of any of the Kiri-nin I had seen so far who were here as genin. In the series he had already been a jōnin when he showed up after the time skip, and he was clearly being _treated_ as one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist by the other Kiri-nin right now. Even Zabuza seemed to have accepted him as one, thinking back to the last dream. The fact he was still a genin stunk of politics and implied some ugly things about why his self-esteem was somewhere below ground. It was easier to keep an impressionable teenager tied down and dependent if they didn't think they were good enough to succeed on their own, even if everything else spoke to the contrary. It didn't have to be true, they just had to believe it.

Suigetsu seemed to have no sympathy whatsoever for any of the newly-and-unwillingly defected, considering that it seemed that none of them had had any for him in return before this. Haku did a much better job, going so far as to actually introduce himself to the various clusters of Kiri-nin taking up space in the corridor.

The reaction from the other examinees, including those from Konoha, varied.

Some of the Konoha-nin had swallowed the Kool-Aid, and eyed Kakashi suspiciously, especially when he was paired with the increasingly growing assortment of Kiri genin lined up in the corridor. None of the Konoha Eleven were part of that group, though Ino when she came out looked at the assorted Kiri-nin with wide eyes as she went down the corridor. Then again, she already seemed pretty dazed when she came out of the exam hall before she actually noticed them.

Kankurō left right after Ino; like most of the other genin from Suna, he gave the various Kiri-nin unsure looks, compared to Temari's carefully muted reaction and the lack of one at all from Gaara.

Seeing the Kusa-nin and their lack of reactions as they walked out, I tried to remember exactly _when_ Orochimaru had replaced them in the show. It didn't really matter either way, but the thought niggled at me.

Naruto was one of the last to straggle out, his beaming expression cut short when he saw Kakashi. "Uh, yikes," was all he said, before he immediately cut over to join me and Sakura. "What's wrong with him?" he tried to quietly ask.

Kakashi did not seem particularly amused by this. "We're waiting for one more person," he said, at a completely normal speaking volume. He didn't need to speak any louder. All the Kiri-nin had silenced immediately the second he began to speak. It seemed he had been keeping track mentally. "Once he's released, then we depart."

No one in the corridor tried to say anything to dispute or question this.

When we finally left the building, besides Team Seven, there were eight other teams. Twenty-four others that Kakashi was in charge of, which probably went a long way in why he was in such a foul mood. Only three of those teams had even been with Zabuza in the first place, going from who had been near who in the corridor.

It was also indicative of a huge jump in how many were going to end up in the Forest of Death, at this rate. I wondered how _this_ was going to end up playing out. Anko had been annoyed at how many had passed in the series in the first place, hadn't she? I couldn't remember how many there were originally, but I suspected that with how many other Kiri teams there were that had passed it was going to be far beyond that.

I doubt she was going to be that happy at this many extra people, if she was even in charge of that section still.

The whole walk was tense and silent.

It wasn't until we reached the place the Kiri-nin from Water were staying in that I realized something. The only member of the Konoha Eleven I hadn't seen leave the exam hall was Shino. It was probably because his father was there, but at the same time, Shino had seemed to be fairly serious where ninja responsibilities were involved. He didn't really strike me as the _sort_ to hang around if his father was actually working.

Then again, maybe I was trying too hard to analyze a fictional teen in my dreams. Even if they were recurring, this was probably going a bit too far.

Outside, we were split up. "If you don't need to go in to grab your things, stay out here," Kakashi said. "Sasuke, Naruto. Come with me. Sakura, stay with Haku."

Sakura looked like she wanted to say something, but stayed quiet, though she looked reluctant to stay behind.

Naruto and I ended up trailing behind the six Kiri-nin who needed to go in. They were the ones whose jōnin-sensei had gone over to Zabuza's side while they were gone.

Inside, barely restrained hostility hung in the air. It seemed more like a hostel than like any kind of inn or hotel, but I reserved judgment until we went up to the second floor.

Naruto was already looking like he was barely repressing any questions he had.

When one of the newly acquired Mist-nin— a girl with muddy green hair in a tight braid that ran from the top of her crown— unlocked the door to the room they had been in, it opened up to reveal a tightly arranged room with three bunks and a set of lockers against one wall. The room was small enough that it was possible for me to make out everything in it from the corridor.

There was a black-haired sulky-faced teenager on one of the top bunks who drew a wicked-looking kunai out, but paused at seeing Kakashi.

"Try and see what happens," Kakashi told him.

The teenager very slowly and deliberately lowered the kunai.

The Mist-nin who unlocked the door scowled at the teenager on the bunk, before motioning for the other two on her team to enter.

As they gathered their things, Kakashi stood in the middle of the corridor, making sure he was obviously in sight. He wasn't slouching; instead, he was standing almost to his full height, head tilted slightly, the thumb of one hand hooked into his pants pocket on that side.

Somehow, in spite of his visible eye remaining half-lidded, everything else about him screamed menace.

"I hope the hunter-nin carve you up," the teenager on the bunk told the girl.

Even from out in the corridor I could see her scowl and stop packing her bag. She pulled a scroll cylinder from the depths of the locker, and pulled its contents out. She unfurled the scroll inside with a sharp whipping movement, and released its contents. A grey Kiri flak jacket and a white mask with a lavender crescent painted on emerged.

The teen on the top bunk froze entirely at the sight of the mask. With Kakashi he had still been willing to move, but no longer.

The other two on her 'team' followed suit, unsealing flak jackets and masks as well.

The masks went into their bags. The flak jackets they put on instead.

The now-revealed hunter-nin looked up at him. "Learn to keep your mouth shut, Mikuri, and you might live through all of this. Then again, you couldn't even pass that first test, so maybe not." She threw the room key at him, before they exited.

Kakashi said nothing.

Tomomi and his teammates exchanged unsure looks at this discovery. Whether it was supposed to be at the realization they were far out of their element skill wise, the fact that hunter-nin had defected, or something else, I couldn't actually guess.

The room Tomomi's team was assigned to was empty, but just as densely furnished.

Naruto's sense of curiosity finally outweighed his current caution. "Why is this place so tightly packed?" he asked.

"Barracks-style temporary lodgings like this are common in all of the large hidden villages," Kakashi answered, not moving to look at Naruto. "While they're frequently used for events like the exam, they're present for allied troop movement. When exams aren't being held, they usually end up used by frugal travelers. Newer traders and migrant workers tend to stay in these rooms. If you ever go to any of the shinobi villages and it's not as part of a large group, you'll stay in a regular inn instead."

Tomomi and his team didn't need much time to grab their things. In the time it took Naruto to ask his question and Kakashi to answer it, they had taken their bags from the lockers and pulled them on over their shoulders.

When we left, Kakashi stayed to the back until we reached the street and where everyone else was.

Like the teenager in the bunk room, all of the Kiri-nin except for Haku momentarily paused at the sight of the three in flak jackets, but it wasn't paired with the same fear the failed teenager had. Probably because without the masks, it only signalled that they were at least chūnin instead.

The girl who seemed to be acting as their leader for the moment looked at the assorted teenagers, then at Kakashi, and came to a clear decision. She looked back at the jōnin once more. "Instead of joining you the rest of the way, my team is going to correctly register ourselves with your gate security. I'm sure this will take a few hours, between the paperwork and potential interrogations, so don't worry about us." She didn't wait for an answer, and instead departed, going just fast enough that her two companions had to quickly move to catch up.

I realized around the same time as Kakashi— going from his body language, at least— that the hunter-nin had just ditched us in preference of _paperwork_ over the possibility of supervising genin.

For what were, I was sure, supposed to be good reasons, Zabuza's group was staying on the other side of the village. In practice, it made for a walk with a group of silent and mostly sullen morale-depleted teenagers. It became very obvious why the hunter-nin had escaped the moment they did before the halfway mark.

It was in one of the medium-sized buildings in a more dense part of the village, where proximity to one of the main thoroughfares and administrative buildings made it clear that they had started building upwards from a need for it. The building looked like it was constructed with the same idea in mind as the other one that had reminded me so much of a youth hostel, but with slightly more prominent visitors in mind.

"Well, there you are," Kakashi said, looking at the sorted Mist genin.

"You're not escorting us _in_?" Tomomi asked, looking between the front doors and Kakashi suspiciously.

"You have allies who can confirm it is a safe location," Kakashi said, ignoring the teen's tone. "You're better off going in on your own anyways. The radio-nin who's been assigned to handle the front desk for the duration of your stay doesn't particularly like me. Something about returning broken equipment too many times."

Tomomi cringed at hearing that. "You don't need to tell me twice," he grumbled. He and his team went for the door first, which resulted in the rest breaking off shortly after, eventually leaving only Haku, Suigetsu, and Chōjūrō behind.

Haku gave Kakashi one of his polite smiles. "I appreciate your escorting us, Kakashi-san."

"Some of the jōnin in your delegation will be taking you all to the muster point in the morning," Kakashi answered. While he didn't seem to be particularly _happy_ , Kakashi was no longer screamingly obviously displeased, from his tone or from how he was standing.

Naruto took this for the chance it appeared to be. "Yeah! We'll see you there! Good luck, Haku!" He paused and tilted his head. "And you too, Suigetsu, Chōjūrō!"

Suigetsu gave Naruto a forced smile." Yeah. You too."

Chōjūrō just looked surprised at getting wished well by anyone. "Thanks, Naruto-kun. I hope your team does well at whatever this next test is."

"Good luck!" Sakura managed to give Chōjūrō and Suigetsu smiles. When it came to Haku though, it turned into a horribly self-aware rictus grin, and she turned around and hid behind Kakashi, blushing.

The only one who didn't completely ignore it was Suigetsu, who looked completely confused by what just happened. He glanced around, before finally speaking up. "…Is she okay?"

Chōjūrō looked at Haku who was suddenly very interested in examining the hem of one of his sleeves before developing a panicked expression of his own. He directed a pleading look at Kakashi.

"I need to take these three to grab some things," Kakashi said, grabbing onto mine and Naruto's heads. "You all should rest while you can." With that, he forcibly steered us away at speed, in spite of all attempts to escape. At least on Naruto's part. I didn't want to stick around for anyone trying to explain girls to Suigetsu either.

"Bye!" Naruto shouted, when he realized he wasn't going to be able to escape this time.

The last thing I could make out before they were completely out of hearing range was Suigetsu irritatedly complaining, "Is _anyone_ going to tell me?"

A block away, Sakura broke into a wail. "I keep looking like an idiot in front of him!"

"I dunno, I didn't think so," Naruto said, when he was finally able to yank himself free.

"So," Kakashi said, with something that almost approached real cheer after earlier. It was several feet away still from being a good impersonation, but it was no longer the several miles away in the realm of 'irritated to the point of being intimidating' that it used to be. "What would you three like to get for take out? It's on me this time."

"What's the catch?" Sakura immediately said, twisting to look up at him.

"Ramen," Naruto answered at the same time. Before Sakura or I could question the complete lack of guile, he added, "The explanation can come second as long as you feed me."

"Ramen it is," Kakashi agreed.

"Naruto!" I couldn't tell whether Sakura was more annoyed at the fact that Naruto had undercut her attempt to get information out of Kakashi, or that he had won out on deciding on the meal.

"Look, _you're_ the one who gave up your chance to say what we should get," he actually reasoned. "Whatever's happening for _him_ to feed us out of his pocket's gotta be pretty bad."

"I hate how much sense that makes," I said.

"Free food's either because something bad's gonna happen, and he's breaking the news to us, to get us to behave if he thinks we're not gonna like something, or because we did something good. I can't think of anything for the last one, so we might as well enjoy it while we can," Naruto declared.

Kakashi squinted down at Naruto for a moment. "How often did that academy sensei of yours bribe you with food?" he asked.

"A lot, why?"

Kakashi sighed. "It was just a question."

Naruto happily led the way to Ichiraku's.

This time, without Kakashi's earlier foul mood and the Kiri-nin to be distracted by, I noticed that there was something different in the atmosphere that didn't seem like it was related to just the exams. There was an undertone of preparation happening that neither Sakura nor Naruto seemed to be picking up.

Even though it was early afternoon, there were closed storefronts and the smattering of restaurants we passed by seemed to only have civilians or the youngest of ninja present as customers.

To my disappointment, Kakashi ordered for all of us, preventing me from having the opportunity to see what the other options were. "Four orders of miso ramen with chashu pork to go, please," Kakashi said, after the owner greeted us.

"Four orders it is, with extra servings of noodles," he answered back.

Kakashi blinked in confusion. "No, that's not—"

"The extra noodles are free," the man insisted, "For my best customer. Business is doing well with all the foreign ninja in the village and a few mentioned Naruto by name. Let me pass it on, Hatake-san, since you're his jōnin-sensei."

Kakashi pulled the money from his wallet, looking uncharacteristically self-conscious at receiving something for free. He didn't seem used to it, at all.

Naruto cheered loudly. "Isn't Teuchi-ji the best?" He spent the whole wait for the food happily chattering, filling the man in on the events of the first exam and the to-him entertaining ongoings of the Kiri-nin along with exaggerated descriptions of the various genin he had run into over the last few days mixed with loudly asking about the business, how Teuchi and his daughter were doing, along other frequent customers, and if Iruka had stopped by at all recently.

Kakashi just looked mildly bewildered at the enthusiasm and knowledge Naruto had of and for this microcosm of the village.

"Thank you," he said quietly, when the food was ready and bagged up. Kakashi seemed lost in thought.

"Come by some time on your own," Teuchi told him. "It'll be a free bowl on me."

"Hey, hey, what about me?" Naruto asked, hopping up and down.

"Come back from this next test first, and then we'll see!"

Naruto laughed.

With a call of "Good luck," we left.

Naruto eyed the bags Kakashi was carrying with a hungry look, licking his lips, before he realized something. "Hey, wait, you ordered it to go. Why? Where are we going?"

"We'll be staying at Sasuke's apartment for the night," Kakashi said. "I took the liberty of collecting things you and Sakura-chan might need earlier."

It took me a moment to process this. "What?" I asked. Dream or not, suddenly discovering I had no say in my space being invaded wasn't one I was pleased with. Even _if_ it was imaginary.

"You _packed_ for me?" Sakura asked, looking horrified and embarrassed differently from her earlier reaction to Haku.

"Your mother picked some clothes out for you," Kakashi answered, actually sounding aghast. "I had her put them in your gear bag. I didn't touch anything."

"That's almost worse…" she mumbled.

"Why are we staying at my place?" I asked. This was both not what I was expecting at all _and_ something I was feeling weirdly offended by.

"Naruto's apartment is a hazard, Sakura-chan lives with her parents, and I don't feel like letting the three of you know where I live," Kakashi answered. It came out too quickly and practiced for my tastes.

"You came up with those reasons after you decided," I concluded.

"Yes." It would have been nicer if I could have come up with a dream version of Kakashi with slightly more shame. At least he suffered to make up for it.

I felt strange and self-conscious on the immediate walk up to Sasuke's apartment door and even opened it to let them in. It wasn't mine, but I still felt the same way I would if I had sudden uninvited guests decide to crash at my own apartment.

At least Sasuke was a tidy person.

Kakashi immediately put the take-out bags on the small kitchen table, with barely a pause from slipping out of his sandals at the door, with Naruto following in, hopping around awkwardly on one foot and then the other as he peeled his own off.

Sakura, on the other hand, was slowly turning pink in the face and hadn't budged.

"I'm not going in until you do," I said.

"Oh!" The blush became stronger and she rushed in, taking her footwear off with more dignity than Naruto. Not that that was that hard to achieve.

I removed my own after I closed the door, chewing my bottom lip as I did.

When I looked up, Naruto had wandered to the other side of the apartment, looking around at everything, lingering near the desk. The pine cover notebook from the trip back from Wave was lying on top of it. Naruto spied it, and began to reach for it.

"Don't touch that," I said, surprised at my own terseness.

Naruto yanked his hand back, and looked embarrassed. "Sorry," he said. "I was just curious. I didn't think you were gonna actually _use_ it."

Sakura and Naruto's gear bags were set next to mine— next to _Sasuke's—_ by the foot of the bed. Kakashi's own was set apart from the others, by the wardrobe. _Why did he bring a bag?_

This wasn't how the story went at all.

I looked at Kakashi suspiciously. "What aren't you telling us?" I asked.

"I was hoping to put it off until after we ate," he admitted.

"Just spit it out."

Naruto quickly moved over to the table before Kakashi could answer. "Uh-uh, no way. Food first, bad news later," he insisted.

Sakura looked between me and Naruto, and then at Kakashi. "…I agree with Naruto," she said, finally. "We can hear what Sensei has to tell us after. It won't change things if we do it in that order, will it?"

"No," Kakashi answered.

Since there weren't enough chairs— and I immediately nixed the suggestion from Naruto of eating _soup on the bed—_ we all ended up eating on the floor, except for Kakashi, who leaned against the wall instead. That seemed more awkward than being on the floor with us or even using the chair available at the table, but that was what he decided to do.

At no point did any of us ever catch him actively _eating_ , but he finished regardless.

At least I knew how to use chopsticks. Overall, I wasn't entirely sure how to feel about the taste— or to be more accurate, that I could taste anything to begin with, even if it was good. A sense of pain. Temperature. Smells and taste. Things that weren't that common in dreams I had before this.

Sakura ended up finishing last, partially between her own slow paced eating, and also the fact the two of us had stopped to stare when Naruto dumped his extra noodles into his remaining broth only to shove it all into his mouth the moment they were wet. I recovered sooner.

"Well, now that that's done," Kakashi said.

We stared at him expectantly from the floor.

"You're supposed to actually _explain_ when you start off with something like that," Sakura said. She didn't sound as exasperated as usual when dealing with him.

Kakashi looked down at us, before he stepped away from the wall, pulling the lone chair out to sit on it, setting his hands on his knees. "There's been a serious security breach in the village." Just like that, the earlier foul mood returned in the full intensity of before; it seemed that it had never left in the first place, he had just shoved it down until it was time to talk.

Sakura frowned.

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto asked, staring up at him. "I mean, it's _obviously_ bad, but…" he frowned, unsure of what exactly to ask or even say.

"We have reason to believe a missing-nin by the name of Orochimaru has infiltrated Konoha."

I blinked. _That_ I was not expecting.

"Why would he want to come into the middle of the village if he's a missing-nin? Wouldn't that be a bad idea 'cause of the exams and all the foreign ninja who are here?" Naruto asked. His face was screwed up in serious thought.

"That would be the case with most fugitives, yes. Orochimaru is a special case. He's a former student of the Sandaime, and a member of the Sannin."

"Like Jiraiya-sama," Sakura realized.

"Jiraiya is the only one of the three currently serving the village," Kakashi explained. "Orochimaru fled from punishment for crimes against the village, and the other member, Tsunade, quit active service decades ago."

An uncertain expression crossed Naruto's face. "Uhmm. Jii-jii doesn't have a good record, does he?"

Kakashi, probably for the better, didn't bother to address that particular thorny question. "Orochimaru is extremely dangerous and there's reason to believe that the chūnin exams taking place are his target. That's why the second test was postponed to tomorrow, among other things, then. The hope is to find out if there is anyone in the walls assisting him and if possible flush Orochimaru out."

Things like escorting all of the Kiri-nin with Zabuza to their lodgings. Or this impromptu sleepover. No wonder Shino had stayed behind, then. While we had made up such a large group that we were nearly the last to leave, I somehow doubted most of the other genin— if not all of them— had left the building on their own.

"Why wouldn't they cancel the exam?" Sakura was looking increasingly concerned.

"This is the first time since his disappearance that his immediate whereabouts are actually known," Kakashi said. I wondered if we were even supposed to know that, before I decided probably not. "Orochimaru doesn't just know village secrets, he's powerful enough to destroy countries on his own."

"We're supposed to do this next test with him just out there?" Naruto asked. He was looking between us all, as if still trying to decide how worried he should actually be.

"I tried to withdraw you all from the exam when I found out. I wasn't allowed." That went a long way in explaining Kakashi's earlier mood. Even as he said it, the words were icy.

It wasn't hard to put together. "We're supposed to be bait," I surmised.

"That's right," Kakashi answered. He wasn't pulling back at all on this.

Sakura flinched at the confirmation.

"What?" Naruto got up from the floor, balling his hands into fists. "We're just expected to— to do whatever this next part is and roll over and be easy pickings? Or were we supposed to be clueless?"

"Their plan involves," Kakashi said in a way that made it clear what he thought of using _that_ word for what he was describing, "keeping all of the genin who passed the first test in the second one where possible. The idea is that it will be too irresistible for him to ignore, even though by now he must be aware we're looking for him. Orochimaru was discovered performing human experimentation, including on kekkei genkai before he left the village." As he spoke, he was looking directly at me. "The expected loss of multiple genin to this plan is supposed to be outweighed by hopefully catching and killing him.

"I refuse to let any of you be sacrificial pieces if I can help it." Kakashi's voice was quietly serious. Grim, more than anything. "These exams aren't supposed to be a slaughterhouse, much less a suicide mission."

"The way people have been talking about it's made it sound so serious, though," Sakura said, looking worried. "I thought people died in them all the time?"

"Death is impossible to prevent in even the most tightly run exam," Kakashi told her. "Under normal circumstances, there are usually one or two from carelessness or from genin being pushed beyond their ability to be in these exams in the first place. Genin who can be considered for chūnin are supposed to be experienced enough that they can defend themselves against most enemies for at least long enough to be able to cut and run if necessary and be able to understand those risks. Understanding your weaknesses and limitations is an important part of your development as a shinobi. You can't succeed without it." Kakashi was being impressively informative for him.

"You give us such a hard time and you barely teach us anything, but you thought we were ready to become chūnin?" The skepticism in Sakura's voice was obvious.

"I don't make recommendations lightly. You're the first team I accepted," he responded. "If I didn't think any of you were ready to become chūnin I would not have put the three of you forward. But that's for _normal_ circumstances. If you are in Orochimaru's way, or he comes for you and decides you are not what he wants, none of you will survive."

"Then what are we supposed to do then, huh? You said you couldn't pull us out. Would whoever's running this one let us quit if we say we chicken out?" Naruto looked frustrated at even asking.

"Probably not, no."

"Isn't there some way for us to disqualify ourselves? Or just not show up tomorrow?" Sakura asked.

"After I tried to have you removed myself?" Kakashi shook his head. "Not anymore."

Sakura bit her lip.

"The next test is supposed to be over the course of five days in one of the training grounds outside of the village walls. Training Ground Forty-four is known as the Forest of Death," Kakashi said.

Hearing this only made Sakura look more ill at ease. "Are you supposed to be telling us this?"

"No, but I don't care," he told her, frankly. "If any genin enter that training ground tomorrow completely clueless I would be very surprised."

"But—"

Kakashi cut her off before she could say anything further. "No. Listen very, very carefully to me. The second test in these exams is a free-for-all in a hostile environment. Our village favors an elimination system that's designed to thin out as many teams as possible. Killing your opponents is usually allowed, but most genin tend to not be at that level." Naruto and Sakura eyed me at those words, but said nothing. "They were discussing forbidding killing this time, but I don't know if they came to a conclusion. I expect you'll find out tomorrow.

"The second test is traditionally two-fold. I don't expect them to make any changes to it. One component is to travel to a specific end-point within a predetermined time limit. For the Forest of Death, it will be to or from the tower at its center. The other is the utilization of two scrolls. As a team you'll be given one of a pair. In order to pass the second test, you'll need to arrive at the end-point with both scrolls by taking the one you're missing from another team. Do _not,_ under any circumstance, open either of those scrolls unless you've reached the end, do you understand? The proctor should tell you to not open them, but it is important that you don't."

"Why?" Naruto asked.

"The scrolls are supposed to summon someone to you. Under normal conditions, they're under orders to knock anyone nearby unconscious and leave them in that state until the exam is over if they are opened singly or in the forest. That being said, we don't know what Orochimaru's plans are or what assets he might have in place within the village." There was almost a kind of reluctance to Kakashi's voice as he brought that up, as though he didn't want to expose any of us the idea that the village's ideals were this compromised and its people not as loyal as they were supposed to be thought of being. Especially not when it was in the face of Naruto's unflinching optimism, which was taking a visible beating from this whole conversation.

Naruto screwed his face up, putting effort in trying to break down what Kakashi was _actually_ saying. "So what you're saying is you think one of those guys could end up being traitors, too? You really think he might have people in like _that_? Wouldn't it be a bad idea to open 'em even if we do make it to wherever we're supposed to?"

"That's what I'm saying, yes," Kakashi said to Naruto. "The difference between the forest and the tower is that there is an electronic surveillance system in the latter in the event they can't be trusted."

"We're supposed to rely on some video cameras? I barely paid attention in the academy and even I remember being told how to evade them! I do it all the time!" Naruto threw his hands up. The frustration that had built up was finding its outlets, as Naruto was beginning to be physically agitated to the point of pacing.

"But Iruka-sensei said that avoiding them only works for certain situations," Sakura pointed out. She had slowly been pulling herself in, hands around her calves, shrinking to gradually take up less space as Kakashi spoke. "Because active surveillance can still notice if something is wrong based on how other people are acting in the shot or if anything happens. Right?" She was actually looking at Kakashi for reassure now.

"It isn't a fail-safe, but in this situation it can make a world of difference for how quickly someone can get to you," Kakashi said. "Response time _will_ make a difference if it comes down to it."

"The difference between being almost dead or just dead," I said, under my breath. "You can try to fix 'almost dead.'"

"Right," Naruto said, with an angry laugh. "Because all we have to do is not just catch some other team and get their scroll _if_ that's what we're supposed to do, yeah? But either get into somewhere or out of somewhere somebody decided to call the _Forest of Death_. And avoid an evil shinobi that's so out of our league the village is fine using all of us as bait in hopes to _maybe_ catch him? So we just have to hope none of _us_ are what he wants? An' just in case _he's_ got extra help _we_ can't expect help except maybe in one place? This is gonna _suck_ , isn't it?" Naruto took a deep breath, collecting himself. "I didn't expect trying to make chūnin to be the hardest part of the road to becoming Hokage."

Some of the tension that had been beginning to suffocate everything unwound itself in the room. Kakashi's shoulders loosened just the slightest, showing just barely some slack again, and Sakura let go of her knees, less hunched in on herself. I couldn't stop myself from quietly snorting.

Kakashi closed his eye for a moment. "Do your best to get to the end-point as quickly as you can. Don't let yourself get mired in fights away from the outside perimeter or out of view of the tower if you can help it. There will be jōnin units stationed outside the training ground boundaries and in the tower itself, but there will be limited personnel within the forest itself."

His gear bag. It didn't make sense for him to have one with him if he was going to be part of the units that could get replaced. "They're actually going to let you be in the forest while we're in there too?" I had to ask, because that seemed off.

"I may have traded some future favors," Kakashi answered, remarkably toneless.

"Couldn't _that_ get us disqualified?" Sakura asked.

"At this point, I doubt that anything short of dragging the three of you out of the country would result in your being removed from this portion of the exam. For a variety of reasons, I would rather not resort to that," Kakashi commented. "While I'll be _in_ the forest, it's large enough that it doesn't mean I will be able to find you or get to you in time if anything happens. Or anyone else, for that matter. As far as I'm concerned, your mission is to survive."

"We can do that," Naruto said. It wasn't loud, or that enthusiastic. Even Naruto found it lacking, repeating himself in a firmer voice. "We can do it. Believe it."

* * *

I woke up on the couch to a dead phone, and my painkillers and a mostly empty glass of water on the coffee table. I was just as exhausted as I had woken up to being the last few days, but the TV was off and I could tell the painkillers were still working. At this point, I would take what I could get.

I plugged my phone in to charge and dozed off again.

At some point after its battery was full, I turned it back on and canceled the therapy appointment I was supposed to have on Monday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone's having as safe a November as they can. The end of October and much of this month have been rough here, but sometimes we just have to try the best we can, especially with this time of year.
> 
> Next up, despite how Team Seven feels about it, is the Forest of Death. This coming chapter is going to be especially chaotic, with an awful lot happening out of sight of our OC friend. 
> 
> As a result, I'll be including a secondary POV for Chapter 11. Who do you all think would be the most interesting option and why? ;)


	11. Discord in the Garden Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second exam goes terribly wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to the ever tea-imbibing Desdendelle and the cat-heating Tavina for beta-reading. 
> 
> Tavina's alternate suggested title for this chapter was: "Everyone's Horrible, Terrible, No Good and Very Bad Second Exam."

I barely avoided missing the next branch, which was impressive, because of just how large it was. Naruto was ahead, moving with surprising speed and determination. Sakura, ahead of me, turned, the serious look on her face softening with concern. "Sasuke-kun, are you okay?"

"Fine," I answered, as I tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

Sakura wasn't wearing her usual clothes; instead of the usual dress and shorts, she was wearing an olive green jacket and matching cargo pants. Even from a distance away, I could tell they were more rugged and hardy looking than her usual outfit was. Occasionally as she jumped or landed, the jacket flared out, showing a black shirt underneath. It was extremely practical, and not delicate looking in the least. This must have been why she wasn't thrilled at finding out her mom packed for her.

This had to be the second test, obviously, but beyond that...

I didn't even know what direction we were going in, or what the plan was, if there was one, or who had the scroll and which one of the two it was. _You're carrying the Scroll of Heaven, dummy_ , my thoughts directed at me.

Somewhat less of a total loss, then, but not enough to make me feel that much less directionless.

We kept going, silent.

The idea that Naruto could stay quiet this long was weird. Almost unnerving. Not quite impossible, but just strange that this twelve year old who generally showed little in the way of self-control could actually stay focused on a single task.

Then again, maybe not so much?

He had to have had some, just to figure out the shadow clone jutsu, after all. And that was for something he thought would get him to become a ninja.

In practice his own survival probably ranked much higher in terms of things that would keep his attention span going. I couldn't see Kakashi's warnings being ignored so easily when they were so serious. At least, I hoped so.

I tried to shove the uncomfortable question of when I started to get attached to imaginary dream children away.

Ahead, Naruto briefly turned his head to look at us. "Sakura-chan, are you holding up okay?"

"You don't need to check every five minutes, Naruto," Sakura answered, sounding not quite exasperated. "It's not going to change from the last time. My knee's fine. The medic-nin cleared me at the hospital after it happened for full duty, remember? That was weeks ago."

"Yeah, but, he said you gotta do exercises and stuff to make sure it recovers fully, didn't he? Doesn't that mean it's still bad?"

"And I've been doing them! Ugh. Just because you might slack on things doesn't mean other people do, right, Sasuke-kun?"

"Right," I said, just choosing to echo. I suddenly felt very guilty. I realized I didn't even know where the folded up print-outs of the knee stabilization exercises I was supposed to do went, much less the ones for my shoulder. I hadn't kept them up for long after I had gotten out of physical therapy. They were probably gathering eraser dust or something in one of my desk drawers.

"Yeah but..." Naruto drifted off, apparently not wanting to share more than he already had. "Nevermind. We'll just keep moving unless someone needs a break, yeah? And hope we don't get caught…" The last words were quieter than the rest.

He was worried. Not just worried, actually afraid. As far as Naruto was concerned, we were in danger of being tracked down by Orochimaru because of _him_. The only reason why he hadn't attempted to split off on his own was probably of being severely warned by Kakashi that we stick together. I resisted the urge to shudder. That thought had floated into my head on its own. Kakashi had said that _this morning_. A morning I knew nothing about, except, it seemed, for that.

I redirected my attention to the surrounding forest.The gargantuan trees reached high into the sky with so many vast branches it was difficult to properly see it. Trees really had no business being this large. Redwood forests were already highly suspicious to me. These hulking beasts didn't even have the excuse of being pine trees and mostly going in an upward direction. These were the plant world versions of freaks of nature, completely impossible.

Being indignant about trees made me feel a bit better, but it didn't last long.

For however many other people were supposed to be in here— between genin teams and jōnin on standby— the forest was quiet in a natural way. No sounds of fighting at all. That was almost spooky on its own.

It said to me at least that everyone in here was preoccupied with the proverbial elephant in the room. The snake in the forest. This was a very, very different game of survival than the one any of them expected they had signed up for, except for the ones who were here because of him. I doubted they would mind it very much.

And Orochimaru wasn't even the only danger in here. There were the Sound-nin, as well.

My personal concern, outside of Orochimaru, was not wanting to run into Gaara.

I didn't want to be the one to find out firsthand he didn't have enough self-control to not kill even when it was a direct instruction, which unfortunately answered the question of if that had been forbidden or not.

I decided to do my best to just stop thinking before anything else slipped into my thoughts, unwanted.

The peacefulness of just running didn't last for long.

Naruto tried to come to a sudden stop on the next branch, a long sloping length extending upwards in the direction we were going that luckily for him gave him enough space to skid and tumble— made particularly rough by the presence of his gear bag— before he got back up to his feet, pulling a kunai out from his holster. Sakura and I, further behind him, had just enough time to slow down and land less clumsily.

It was obvious why Naruto had stopped when he had, when we dropped down to join him.

A bright red spray of blood was apparent against the wood, with kunai and shuriken embedded in this branch and some of the other branches nearby. The scent of smoke from burnt wood lingered in the air, heralding the occasional scorch marks in the trees around us. A fight had taken place here.

Something about it made me tense up.

Sakura gasped, before pressing her hand to her mouth to cut it off. "We need to leave," she said, as quiet as she could.

Naruto was still looking around with the kunai gripped in his hand, eyes squinted in concentration.

"What is it?" I asked.

She pointed upwards, without a word.

Naruto exchanged a wary look with me.

I regretted looking up.

Pinned above our heads to the overhanging branch were two bodies, both in flak jackets, one with an obvious neck wound, blood still seeping down. The other showed no sign of injury at all, but neither showed any signs of life.

Too realistic.

Blood splashed down onto the branch we were standing on, staining the bark.

It was only when I met Sakura's eyes that it occurred to me that it hadn't dripped before that. That had to mean the bodies had just been pinned up there right before we got here. It was new. Same as the spray of still-bright blood earlier, and the smell of smoke.

Naruto jumped ahead, only to be swallowed whole by the giant snake that suddenly lunged down from above, descending to the ground in a way that was horrifyingly silent except for the snap of its jaws. It disappeared from sight.

Sakura screamed. "NARUTO!"

I couldn't help but approach the edge to stare downwards, trying to figure out where the _fuck_ the snake went. With all the _other_ sensory nonsense with these dreams, I absolutely did _not_ want the experience of being eaten by a snake.

"I'm surprised you're not running," a voice said. I twisted around to find out where it was coming from, temporarily meeting Sakura's eyes.

A figure dropped down from the branch the corpses were pinned to, landing without a sound. Their dark hair was pulled back into a tight bun, a Konoha hitai-ate tied to their forehead. Dressed in a collared track jacket, and with a sash crossing over one shoulder, nothing about the clothing remotely screamed menace, but there was something chilling in the half-mocking smile directed at us.

Sakura pulled out a kunai, even as she took a step backwards.

"Would that even do anything?" I asked. "It's obvious who you are. Are we supposed to be stupid enough to assume that would work?"

Triggering that kind of nightmare sequence never went well in dreams gone bad for me before, and I didn't think it would turn out any different with one featuring Orochimaru. I really, really did not think that Sakura and I would be able to out-run Orochimaru in a nightmare, even when he was dressed non-threateningly like that. He was still wearing someone's face over his own, after all.

There was no point, which annoyed me.

"You Uchiha... for all that you enjoy being dramatic yourselves, you can't stand anyone else having the same opportunity, do you?" He laughed. "And here I was, ready to play pretend for you."

Sakura stepped backwards, until she was on the very edge of the branch before it no longer offered standing ground.

"I don't need this anymore, even to pretend to check against yours, then." He mockingly pulled out the scroll for the exam. The Scroll of Earth. Unlucky us. He opened his mouth, and I could pinpoint the moment that it was past where a normal human would be able to extend their jaw. Orochimaru's tongue extended out from his mouth, wrapping it around the scroll, pulling it into his mouth before he swallowed it whole.

His throat bulged as it slid down. A stupid thought crossed my mind, despite the horror and tension of the moment: I wondered how it would even come out, or if he would even bother, if this hadn't been a dream. There was no way it was going to get past his stomach.

"So much for games. Let's see how you deal with fighting for your life, when it's futile."

Like the dream with the Tsukiyomi before, terrible images of death smashed through my head. Not of the Uchiha clan, but of Sasuke's. My stomach roiled threateningly.

I shook my head, trying to ignore it even as my breathing went shallow. Breathe in. Breathe out. Deep breathes to fight off the panic and fear that was trying to grip me.

Sakura let out what barely counted as a noise as she dropped to her knees, the kunai clattering out of her hand and onto the wood. Uncontrolled tears began to stream down her face.

"Sakura, get up," I said, grabbing her arm. I pulled her up, shifting her to provide more support. "This isn't real."

She whimpered. I nudged at one of her feet to force her to try and support herself more.

Something flashed in Orochimaru's eyes— a greedy look directed entirely at me— and the terrible mental images and fear began to dissipate. "How are you able to ignore it, Sasuke-kun?" The condescending derision of earlier had disappeared entirely.

I couldn't quite convince myself that an _intrigued_ Orochimaru was better to deal with. It probably wasn't.

"Sakura, _we need to move_ ," I whispered, voice urgent. "Close your eyes and get a hold of yourself. _Breathe_." She did, almost immediately steadying.

"Is there something wrong with you, to inhibit what should be a natural fear for someone targeted as prey? Or is there something else?" Orochimaru's smile was taunting. "Do you think you're also a predator, Sasuke-kun?"

I glanced back at Orochimaru, unable to disguise how unimpressed I was with the heavy-handed metaphors, and then grabbed Sakura around the waist, throwing us both off the side of the branch, clapping a hand over Sakura's mouth when she opened it to scream in surprise. It ended up muffled against my palm, her breath warm. We tumbled down, rolling and smashing against different branches on the way. The air was completely knocked out of me by the time we were on solid ground.

Sakura got up first on wobbly legs, giving me a hand to help stand up.

From down here, we couldn't even see the branch we had been on. I hadn't realized how far up that had been.

Sakura armed herself again, if shakily. "Sasuke, are you alright?" she whispered. She pulled me towards the nearest tree we were next to; immense like the others, its roots were partially lifted above the ground, creating nooks to hide in.

"Yeah," I answered, distracted. There was no sign of any snakes— actual or figurative. I wasn't sure how we'd come across or get Naruto back if we were this lost. I guess we'd have to hope he'd figure it out on his own, otherwise _he'd_ be lost.

"Those bodies… They were wearing flak jackets. They had to be some of the jōnin trying to capture him. What are we supposed to do? _He knew your name._ " Sakura's voice quavered, even with how softly she was speaking. She was trying to avoid attracting any attention to where we were.

I couldn't remember the entire sequence of events or reasonings from the show; Naruto had been swallowed by one of Orochimaru's snakes in there, too, but was giving the seal to Sasuke always Orochimaru's goal from the start or had that been a change of plans?

How much did Sasuke's Sharingan play into that? Had I even unlocked it in these dreams? _No_ , I hadn't. Sasuke's lack of trauma was unfortunate there, I guess.

I chewed on my bottom lip as I thought over the options. "If he knew mine, it means he doesn't care about you. Go. Find Naruto or someone." I had a strong suspicion I was about to find out how important an active Sharingan could be to Orochimaru's interest in Sasuke. He had given up on even pretending he was in here for the exam when confronted.

" _What?_ " Sakura sounded insulted, it overriding her current fearfulness. "I'm not going to leave you behind! How can you suggest that?"

"Easily," I answered. "He came in here for a reason, and that's me. If he decides you're a nuisance, he'll just kill you. Those jōnin didn't stand a chance. What makes you think we will?"

She looked at me, worry in her eyes. "Sasuke-kun… the last time I left you behind…"

"Does it matter?" I was beginning to wish we hadn't fallen all the way to the ground. It would have been easier to lose Sakura.

That turned out to be the wrong thing to say. Her eyes narrowed. "Don't say that kind of terrible thing," she hissed. "I felt _awful_ when we heard there were bodies and we couldn't even stop to see if you were one of them. I am _not_ going through that again when I don't have to, especially with both of you at the same time!" It seemed like Sakura had ended up with the lion's share of the trauma from Wave, then. I didn't count my new squeamishness around raw meat.

"How touching," Orochimaru's voice said, from above.

Sakura jolted, and we looked upwards.

He was wound around a thinner branch, one arm hanging loosely down, straight. It was a terrible contrast against the rest of his body, warped as it was to wrap around the wood.

I was not looking forward to having normal nightmares if those ever happened again, because I couldn't see my mind _not_ reusing that in the future.

There was a sudden rustling.

Sakura and I barely dodged out of the way as another massive snake— not so large as the one that had managed to swallow Naruto whole— darted at the spot we had hidden in, its jaws wide, showing its dripping fangs.

It barely occured to me afterwards that I had let loose a flurry of shuriken when I had split away from Sakura. Blood was visibly running from the side of the snake's I was facing.

On the other side, Sakura had not gained such a wide clearance, and red covered her right sleeve, before it slowly turned to flecks on her shoulder and face. She was breathing hard, her eyes wide. The kunai was missing, but her hand was red and damp, with a small chunk of flesh clinging to her fingers. If either of us could put more claim to the snake's death, it was her.

My stomach turned again. I tried my best to ignore it. Throwing up now was an awful idea. Then again, it had worked to distract Itachi, hadn't it? I wasn't sure I wanted to _try_ to throw up on someone in these dreams on purpose, though, even Orochimaru. Once was bad enough.

"Both of you are more interesting than I expected," Orochimaru mused. "Are you planning on surpassing your brother, Sasuke-kun? Should I bother to ask your comrade's name?"

"Will it get you to stop with the predator and prey nonsense?" I asked, in spite of myself.

Before I could even process it, he had moved from the branch to the ground, and was holding me up by the neck at arm's length, looking me in the eye. A bit too closely in the eye. My jaw didn't take long to start aching from where his grip was positioned, legs dangling uselessly.

"You haven't awoken the Sharingan," Orochimaru concluded. "Even with all that loss… Are you unwilling to acknowledge it, or is it something else? I can't believe it's because you don't possess it at all." The pressure on my neck shifted. "Even the most elite of jōnin react to my killing intent."

_Can't breathe, can't breathe…_

"Sasuke!" Sakura's shout did nothing. Why would it have?

He stared at me impassively as I finally began to thrash when my vision started to fade to black around the edges, trying to breathe. Was this really what it would feel like?

It was getting harder to move or think, and my eyes started to shutter close.

The grip on my neck moved again, the pressure no longer on my windpipe.

I gasped, before I sucked in fresh air.

"Too slow again," he noted. "But not involuntary."

"LET GO OF SASUKE, YOU ASSHOLE!" Naruto's shout came just before he dropped into sight, smashing down into Orochimaru from above, knocking the Sannin down, and me out of his grasp.

There was a pearlescent mucousy sheen covering Naruto, thick enough that his hair was sticking up in hard spikes where it wasn't slicked against his skull. It was disgusting, and absurdly made me wonder how he got out of the snake. Then again, I probably didn't want to know.

Naruto grinned at me as he stood up. "Hey, hey, did you see tha—"

He was knocked into a tree by a swift kick as Orochimaru righted himself.

"One cautious, one reckless, and then there's you, Sasuke-kun," Orochimaru said.

Naruto struggled to his feet, eyes narrowing. "Hey, you bastard! We're all Konoha-nin here! Why are you going after us?"

"Is that what you think is going on?" Orochimaru laughed to himself.

Sakura's eyes widened as she realized. "Naruto, don't! That's Orochimaru!"

Orochimaru's attention shifted again, this time directed onto Naruto, clearly putting things together. "The Kyūbi brat?"

Naruto froze, eyes widening with fear and worry.

"So you do know what you are." Orochimaru smirked, drawing closer to Naruto. Despite the slow, deliberate walk, Naruto didn't move, his eyes dilating as he switched between looking at me, Sakura, and Orochimaru. Naruto's breathing was visibly labored by the time Orochimaru was standing in front of him. The fear that gripped him was different from the one that Orochimaru had triggered in Sakura before. "Hiruzen-sensei must have constructed this team with a hope of keeping you under control just in case something happened... Hatake Kakashi must be your jōnin-sensei, then," he concluded out loud.

There was something terrible and fascinating about watching him reason all of this out just from one single clue.

"'Kyūbi brat'?" Sakura questioned, her voice small.

Orochimaru laughed. "Your teammates don't know, but you do?"

It was like throwing a switch.

Naruto's eyes narrowed, and he snarled. "Don't you dare tell them!"

"The Yondaime Hokage sealed the Kyūbi into a newborn infant and died in the process. This boy."

Sakura gasped.

Orochimaru's smirk turned even more mocking. "This whole team was likely never meant to be a legitimate one from the start. The single remaining Sharingan user in the village, one with the possibility of possessing a full set, and..." His eyes lingered on Sakura. I tried to dismiss the idea that his gaze seemed almost sympathetic. "Probably an intended sacrifice or distraction? The Sandaime isn't afraid of wasting his shinobi as long as they aren't precious to him."

Naruto threw himself at Orochimaru, the blue of his eyes bleeding into a red visible from here, the whisker marks on his face darkening and broadening. "I SAID! DON'T! TELL THEM!"

His hand clawed across Orochimaru's stolen face, and it tore, peeling apart where Naruto had struck him. The skin hung in tatters, getting in the man's eyes, revealing the near-white complexion beneath it.

Orochimaru didn't seem to have expected that to happen so fast, striking Naruto away with one arm, before the other reached out, stretching far beyond what a normal arm should have been capable of. He gripped Naruto's jacket collar to hold him up, like he had scruffed an unruly pet.

"LET! ME! GO!" Naruto's shouting devolved into something more terrible and primal, as he clawed and kicked out into the empty air. Whatever reason and kind of cleverness Naruto usually possessed had completely abandoned him.

Using his free hand, Orochimaru tore the ruined skin from his face, pulling it up from under his chin and through his hair, where he finally reached his fingers through the hair tie, loosening his hair from the bun it had been in, all in one smooth motion. Bits of tattered skin hung in his hair. He approached Naruto, letting his arm shorten to a more normal length, passively observing his struggle. His gaze soon drew down to Naruto's stomach, Naruto's thrashing making his jacket and shirt shift upwards, exposing his belly.

"So the seal is visible when you get riled up… Emotions affect the body in such interesting ways... " What looked like purple fire suddenly appeared at Orochimaru's fingertips.

This was so much worse to watch than in the show.

I wasn't aware of arming myself, but I must have, for there to be a cloth-strip covered Kunai gripped between my teeth as I rushed forward, the joints between my fingers already occupied with more. Metal wire led away, knotted around the loops at the end of the kunai, tied around even more kunai and shuriken that swung behind me as I rushed forward.

We had rigged up for laying traps on the fly if need be, with ninja wire attached to our kunai and even shuriken.

This time, knowing didn't bother me.

I threw the first handful in an arc, twisting to avoid getting caught by the weapons attached to the wires at the other ends, with much more grace than I really possessed. Sasuke did, though.

Orochimaru's eyes— their true color visible now— widened in surprise, barely dropping Naruto in time to be able evade the first wave of kunai.

It wasn't quite fast enough for the second wave. A shuriken that was tied to one of the kunai from before clipped a visibly large hank of his hair at the midpoint as it swung through the air. I didn't need the Sharingan to predict _Orochimaru's_ moves. He just needed to be unable to predict everything heading at _him_.

The one in my mouth still remained, and my fingers moved on their own, molding just enough chakra to set the cloth aflame. I flung it at Orochimaru's feet.

Sakura's eyes widened, and she yanked a kunai from her own holster. There was an exploding tag attached to it. It would possibly buy us enough time—

or just make things worse.

"Naruto! Move!" I shouted, just as Sakura threw it.

Naruto looked up from where he had been on the ground, his eyes still wild looking and red, even from here.

I had a sudden bad feeling about this.

He launched himself at Orochimaru, instead of heading for safety, with a wordless scream, fury still painted on his face.

"Naruto!"

Orochimaru jammed his hand— the ominous purple flames still dancing on his fingertips— against Naruto's belly.

Naruto let loose a terrible yowling sound before he bonelessly collapsed to the ground.

Sakura's kunai hit my lit one, and an explosion went off, blasting dirt and smoke upwards, making everyone else disappear from sight.

The last thing I saw was Orochimaru's face, fangs extended from his mouth suddenly lunging at me from the smoke.

Being bitten in a dream did not hurt any less than being bitten in real life, which was absolutely unfair.

* * *

"All teams, this is Team Sarutobi. Clear over here," the radio piece fed into Kakashi's ear as the last jōnin pair checked in at the quarter hour mark. Its volume was turned down to be as low it could be to avoid unnecessary sound, since the earpieces leaked noise. It meant that any comms were only _half_ distinguishable.

Quarter hour many, Tenzō signed to him, when they began to move again to patrol their portion of the forest. The former Root agent had even thrown in the unnecessary downward drag that was supposed to inflect disapproval. At first, Kakashi noticed it only among a specific subset of Anbu— Root agents in the wild— but before long it has spread to most of the others, who had thrown more modulating movements in. Only captains and exasperated trainers kept it out of their signs, now.

Negative, he flicked back behind his head, and shot ahead. Tenzō would have to take the lead or get next to him to continue that 'argument', as much as it could be considered one. Despite how few hand signals there were— however much rumors liked to state it was the case, Anbu tactical signs only had a few extra beyond the standard Konohagakure list, it was no true language— Tenzō was adept in arguing and even complaining in it all the same. He hadn't missed it.

Besides the limited radio use, they were running silent; it was the only option that made sense, being ordered to limit their interference in the test as much as possible. Otherwise, they would attract too much attention from not just the participating genin, but the wildlife as well, outside of Orochimaru and whoever else he had managed to get into the examination.

Konoha's intel team had already identified one team, extracting them inside of their gate before they could get any further. Doing so earlier would have provided hints to anyone else. The genin from Otogakure were likely being dealt with by Torture & Interrogation as Kakashi patrolled. Even with everything else going on— enough that reserve forces were being activated to help with everyday operations, much more than normally happened for the exams— it was too time sensitive to have them wait in a cell.

Orochimaru did not have a reputation for doing anything by halves; a single group of teenagers who could be immediately subdued by a single Anbu— in spite of their attempt at a fight— only put them all more on edge. There was no possible way that was it. Kakashi refused to let his guard down.

Killing intent flooded over him, followed by a scream from far ahead and below. Without bothering to signal behind him— Tenzō would figure it out— he dropped several feet down, pushing chakra into his legs and ran until he could get a more thorough look, pushing his hitai-ate up to uncover the Sharingan.

It isn't very often that Kakashi came across a murder scene where there weren't even body parts remaining.

The scent of blood was heavy in the air, enough to permeate his mask, and there were dark wet splatters on the ground. Uneven, radiating from a center point in a clearing.

Three Suna genin— the Kazekage's children— were standing on one side of the bloodshed. The killing intent was emanating from the youngest one, who was splattered with blood. It would be more unexpected if he hadn't investigated ahead of time, when Naruto had babbled about meeting a red-haired boy who, unfortunately to Naruto, was not family. Gaara of the Sand was already a killer of repute, an internal issue of serious concern for Suna. Most _jōnin_ couldn't give off enough killing intent for it to spread as far as that had. The vast majority of genin could barely exude it at all.

On the other side, two Kusa genin, who were staring in clear horror, standing utterly still. The girl of the two had bright red hair of a shade he had only seen on one other person, almost thirteen years ago. A matter for another time.

It wouldn't impact the mission, he decided.

Tenzō joined him a moment later, standing ahead enough in front of him that it meant Kakashi couldn't pretend to ignore his hand signs. Eight, he signaled. Three Konoha. Engage query, disprove.

Out of sight, then. If they had any sense, then those genin would leave the moment they were given the opportunity.

To Tenzō's clear dismay, Kakashi dropped into the clearing. They didn't need two unstoppable forces rampaging through the forest, after all. Not when the younger one could be used to the benefit of the other. The change in rules allowed the jōnin to remove any identified killers from the forest, at least.

The killing intent radiating from the youngest Suna-nin retracted with a baleful look directed at him..

"Jōnin-san, this was an accident," the eldest of the three siblings tried to tell him, her words rushed. She raised her hands placatingly.

"Fuck off!" a bush shouted. It rustled for a moment, with hushed whispers, before a boy pushed out to stand in front of it, the red fang markings on his face telling Kakashi he was an Inuzuka. The small dog, quivering in the Inuzuka's jacket, was just additional confirmation. Two others emerged to stand next to him, an Aburame boy and a Hyūga girl. Part of Kurenai's team, then. "That bastard just went off and killed someone! You're just gonna lie about it?"

This was a worse situation than Kakashi had expected to deal with.

"Don't talk that way about my younger brother!" Temari shouted, as the middle sibling cringed.

"He killed Shigeri in cold blood!" The dark-haired Kusa boy retorted. "You stood there and let it happen! You were going to let him kill all of us!"

"You were the ones who attacked us first! It's not our fault! You started this in the first place!"

"We didn't expect that we'd get fucking _murdered_!"

"So? It's not our fault the rules changed! We had to show that we understood we could potentially die during the exams before we left our village, didn't you?"

The red-headed girl burst into silent tears.

It was almost enough to make Kakashi consider leaving the clearing and allow the genin to fix themselves instead, but it was too late. He had already made the decision to intervene the way he had. He was beginning to regret this new habit that he had developed in the last few months. Allowing genin to talk was a mistake; he should have known better from his experience leading Team Seven.

"Both of your teams are disqualified and no longer part of this exam," Kakashi said. "Team Kurenai—" the Inuzuka and Huuyga both reacted in blatant surprise at the fact he knew who led them, the Aburame less so— "Unless you feel like joining them, leave."

His declaration only started another uproar of protests, between the male Kusa-nin, the two older siblings from Suna, and the Inuzuka boy.

"Why are _we_ disqualified—"

"—it was an _accident_ —"

"We didn't even do anything!"

"-even know-"

"Why are _we_ getting in trouble?!"

Sand shifted, skirting across Kakashi's toes. He decided to ignore it.

"Will you all _shut up_ ," Gaara rasped.

The genin went dead-still, silent enough to hear the wind in the branches above.

Gaara stared at Kakashi. "You're Naruto's sensei."

"How does he know Nar—" The Inuzuka was silenced as his teammates pressed their hands over his mouth, pulling him back. Kurenai had mentioned her concerns about her team; he would have to mention to her that the Hyūga girl's survival instincts outweighed the anxiety Kurenai had thought would be such an issue

Wonderful. It stood to reason that Naruto would manage to make himself memorable to the most dangerous genin in the exam. "Yes, I am." There was no point in bothering to deny it, the information was easily accessible, especially during the exams. He had probably put the connection together from when he and his team had left the exam hall when Kakashi was waiting for the various Kiri-nin that had fallen under Zabuza's banner.

The boy stared into his eyes, unblinking. "If he lives past this… I want to talk to him."

"We'll see," Kakashi answered. He wondered how much ramen it would take in the form of blatant bribery to make Naruto avoid the red-haired boy. From how much his blond student enjoyed both ramen and making terrible friends, he suspected it would empty his savings. He'd leave that tactic to Asuma. "Team Kurenai. _Leave_."

This time, they finally left, the Inuzuka dragged away forcibly by his teammates. The dog had more sense than his human partner.

Once they were acceptably out of range, Kakashi spoke once more. "Take out your scrolls and open them."

Temari eyed him warily, more so now that her younger brother had said anything. "I thought we weren't supposed to open them unless we reached the tower?"

"You are no longer part of this exam. Open your scrolls."

The red-headed Kusa-nin haltingly pulled out the scroll for her team, tears still streaming down her face. Kankuro— the cynical comments on the intel report about how the boy was only a few years away from being able to be used as an easy body double for his father the Kazekage weren't that far off at all— reluctantly pulled the one he was holding out.

Both had the Scroll of Earth.

Kankuro waited until the girl started to open hers up to do so himself.

Smoke began to disperse, and out of alarm and caution the genin threw the scrolls out and away. At least that showed neither were as senseless as the earlier dramatics suggested.

Two chūnin appeared from the smoke, the only thing stopping them from immediately attempting to knock the genin out being Kakashi's presence.

To Kakashi's internal surprise, both were women; one he vaguely recognized as one of the many instructors at the academy, a curly haired woman in glasses that he only knew of having the unique reputation as being a germaphobe in spite of working with children. The other, unfortunately, he knew well by sight if not personally, though it had been years since he saw her in a flak jacket.

Things were not going well in the village if Nara Yoshino— the Jōnin Commander's wife— felt the need to volunteer herself for active duty again. She must have forced her way into taking one of the opened roles, after yesterday's reorganization happened. It was no wonder now that Shikaku— normally adept at keeping annoyance off his face— had looked particularly frustrated when they were planning out the general area each jōnin team would patrol this morning.

"The team from Suna killed someone and are disqualified from the rest of the exam. The Kusa-nin no longer have a full team as a result and can no longer continue," he informed them, keeping his voice as casual as he could. Yoshino had already noticed the girl's hair. The other woman showed no sign of making any kind of connection. "Both need to be escorted to the tower."

"We still have to go there anyways?" Temari asked in disbelief. "We're closer to the gates out than to that building!"

"You entered and signed the release form," Yoshino said, folding her arms under her chest. "Do you really want to be found out as the first team that failed _entirely_ because you couldn't follow basic instructions?"

Temari's eyes narrowed. For being outnumbered by Konoha-nin that outranked her in a non-combat situation, she was holding her ground. In spite of her youngest brother— or because of him— she was doing her best to try to exert as much control as she could over the situation. Kakashi resigned himself to mentioning that. "Fine. Are we going to have to stay there until the second exam is finished?"

"Yes," Kakashi answered.

"Thank you for alerting us in the first place, but we can take over from here," Yoshino told him.

The other woman nodded slightly. "Thank you, Hatake... san." Kakashi ignored the delay.

It wasn't the first time he was so firmly dismissed by chūnin, and it certainly wouldn't be the last time. While with Yoshino it was probably just how the woman was— going from gossip, along with the fact she was trying to firmly reassert herself after years inactive— the hesitance of the academy teacher wasn't anything new from the past several weeks. The fact she had even made the attempt at being polite at all meant that his reputation was slowly recovering in spite of itself.

Either way, it meant these genin weren't his problem anymore. All the better for him.

Kakashi gave a lazy one-fingered salute of acknowledgement before making the tiger seal, disappearing out of their sight with a plume of smoke before running. He stopped on a branch overhead that still had enough clearance beneath it to watch, just in case. He lowered his hitai-ate back into position.

Tenzō landed silently next to him, the only tell being the other man's weight making the branch dip lightly.

The earpiece crackled. "All teams, this is Tower. Check in requested, over," Gai's voice said.

Kakashi pressed to transmit, answering. "Tower, Hatake. All clear."

Tenzō gave him a look of disapproval as the other teams answered. Likely over the blatant lie over the comms. "You should have just knocked them out and let the assigned chūnin handle it."

"There's something off about the Kazekage's youngest son. Not just the killing intent."

Tenzō frowned. "You could have let me know instead of throwing yourself into without warning."

They watched as the chūnin and genin below took off in the direction of the tower.

"Didn't matter."

While the killing intent and chakra emanating from Gaara had carried implications, especially when paired with the boy's reputation... The expressions and reaction of the red-haired boy reminded Kakashi of one of his own charges instead, and not in a way that boded anything well.

Uchiha Sasuke concerned him.

Normal genin did not react so little to death or treat people like they were afterthoughts or frustrations that could be carved or pushed through, even in battle. While the boy's reactions after he had carved through a swath of Gato's mercenaries were normal after a first kill— throwing up, an avoidance of bloody meat, and nightmares— it was everything during it that worried him.

Even experienced jōnin did not shut themselves off like that. Even prior to the annihilation of the Uchiha clan, Sasuke's older brother had not. For all that shinobi were tools and soldiers, they were still people. In spite of all the death the genin had been exposed to by now, and the way Kakashi had seen Sasuke's first kills haunt the boy's sleep, there was no sign of the Sharingan.

What did it mean that the surviving child was able to surpass his elder brother in such a terrible way?

And yet, in spite of that, outside of that mission and the altercation with the Hyūga boy the one and only time they trained with Gai's team, Sasuke appeared… not normal, Kakashi had no idea what counted as normal for almost thirteen year old children and didn't like what insight he was beginning to gain there, but the boy acted with enough maturity to counterbalance the other two and seemed to at least respect that the people who surrounded him on a daily basis were people as well. He was mostly quiet.

Even so, the only thing that kept Kakashi from dropping Sasuke off at the Intelligence Division's main building was Jiraiya's urging for him to keep his worries to himself, after he had brought up his concerns to the older man when Jiraiya had met them in Kōsaten-mura on their return to Konoha. While he had done so, it didn't mean he wasn't baffled at the fact that Sasuke had somehow 'passed' the psychological screening after their mission anyways. If it weren't for the fact that he needed to avoid any further trouble for the foreseeable future, he would have infiltrated the hospital to look through Sasuke's medical records. Making a formal request would only alert someone to the fact that he felt the need to look through them.

Yoshino and the others vanished entirely from sight. He could only assume that Gaara was assenting entirely to the escort, then; there'd be no need for a direct intervention on his part.

Giving in to Tenzō's better nature, he held the transmission switch down. "Tower, Hatake. Two chūnin and five genin are on their way to the tower." The numbers explained what happened well enough.

"Team Hatake, Tower. Roger that." In spite of the fact it was only Gai's voice being transmitted, the tone of Gai's voice all but outright said that the man was probably directing a thumbs up out at the forest from where he was positioned.

Tenzō seemed placated by the better adherence to procedure, and he laid off the annoyed-inflection motion when they exchanged information in tactical signs for the next few hours.

It was late afternoon when one of the check-ins had a failure.

"Team Aramaki, Tower. Nothing heard, over."

Kakashi and Tenzō stopped on the next branch, long enough to exchange looks. According to the plan laid out, they were nowhere near the general area that that team was supposed to patrol.

There was no way for them to know what had happened unless that pair either checked in late somehow or someone closer investigated.

Even though there were five teams that could investigate easily, the comms stayed silent.

Silence was not always cowardice. Not all sacrifice was meaningful.

Jōnin did not run headlong into death without thinking; however valiant the idea was made to seem to small children and academy students, and rushing headfirst to investigate when two jōnin had possibly died in less than fifteen minutes from the last check-in was the definition of recklessness. Reckless ninja did not live to be ninja for very long.

"Team Hyūga, this is Team Yūhi, over," Kurenai's voice broke the silence.

"Kurenai-" Asuma's voice broke from procedure, before ending the transmission entirely.

"Team Yūhi, this is Team Hyūga. You have a plan in mind, over?" The crisp words carried over with practice and no tension in the Hyūga's voice.

"Team Hyūga, Team Yūhi; we're requesting your team to join us to investigate."

"Team Yūhi, this is Team Hyūga. Wilco out."

Kurenai and her partner for this were on one of the inner patrols ringing the missing team. The Hyūga team's patrol area didn't border the missing team's, but Kurenai's. With the Hyūga clan member's assistance, it would approach something less than a total death trap. At least, in theory it would.

Two jōnin dead in fifteen minutes or less. Whatever Orochimaru was planning, at least some of it was in this forest filled with genin after all.

With only a meaningful glance, Tenzō shoved a bamboo water canteen into his hands before he began to move again, momentarily leaving Kakashi behind.

Kakashi took the moment for what it was. He pulled his mask down, uncovering his lips for long enough to drain the canteen of its contents. He pulled it back up into place and shoved the now empty canteen into his bag before he rushed to catch up.

There was only so much they could do.

Whatever the Hokage thought this would achieve, it was looking increasingly certain that capturing Orochimaru would not happen. Not without plenty of jōnin dying for the sake of attempting to get one man.

Whatever secrets Orochimaru had, what value they could hold this many years after his crimes and departure... it left questions. Kakashi was unable to fully shove the probably-dead jōnin out of his concern. There were very few things in the forest that likely held any interest to Orochimaru, and Kakashi was supposed to be in charge of two of them.

* * *

The shadows were deep, and only becoming deeper as the sun set.

However useful that would be for Shikamaru, it didn't explain why Ino was forcing them in the same breakneck pace they had been since entering from their gate.

"Ino, we can't keep going like this," he finally protested, coming to a complete stop. "Either we stop together, or you're going without us."

"No-" Ino turned around, her ponytail swishing and fanning out. The fight momentarily drained from her, as she looked between him and Chōji. "You're right," she said, shoulders slumping. "We should find somewhere to set up camp."

Chōji sighed with relief.

It would have to do for now. For the last several weeks, Ino had been in an almost constant _frenzy_ , for lack of a better description. While she had always been annoyingly bossy, it had switched into being closer to _bullying_ , taking training with their parents and with Asuma-sensei suddenly more seriously than she ever had before. It would have bothered Shikamaru less if it hadn't been for the fact that he and Chōji were getting dragged into it, whether they liked it or not.

Being harangued by Ino was actually worse than being harassed by his mother; Kā-san at least _asked_ how he was doing instead of just trying to make him miserable. She was even beginning to become concerned at how forceful Ino was being lately with trying to force him into doing things. It was starting to make him have to readjust his evaluation where his mother was concerned.

Hanging out with Team Seven in their spare time was one thing; Ino's resurrected friendship with Sakura was the least annoying change as of late, even if he had no idea what the hell Naruto was getting up to, to somehow end up friends with missing-nin revolutionaries. Sasuke at least kept his mouth shut usually and didn't expect much.

Her suggestions for them to train with Team _Eight_ , however… Shikamaru had no idea what _that_ was about. Ino had mostly ignored Hinata the whole time in the academy, and her interest in flowers meant that she wasn't exactly thrilled by Shino or Kiba, between the insects and the dog. It was only made worse by the fact that Asuma-sensei _and_ Kurenai-sensei had agreed to the idea. He had no idea what that was about, either, for that matter.

The whole thing was a drag.

Shikamaru looked over their surroundings, frowning. It was already becoming dark enough that the shadows on the ground were becoming meaningless; even his own barely stood in contrast, and he couldn't see it improving, considering the sun hadn't even fully sunk yet. While Chōji's techniques were best suited for being on the ground, if they stayed down here his own techniques were going to be almost useless. The current phase of the moon wasn't going to provide nearly enough light to reach down here. He wasn't skilled enough to work in _near_ -darkness; not yet, at least. That required not just more chakra control than he currently possessed, but more chakra and much more experience than he had.

"We need to get higher," he said.

While it would be better for them to _get_ to the tower as quickly as they could, none of them were— or at least should be— in more danger than they would normally be for this exam. At least, that was what Chōji's father had tried to imply to them.

Orochimaru's experiments had been with kekkei genkai. All of their techniques were hiden. As long as they just managed to _avoid_ crossing the path of an legendary S-rank ninja who according to Chōza was powerful enough to have once been considered a candidate for Yondaime and had fended off Anbu and the Sandaime off to escape from the village, they would be fine.

They just had to ignore everything else, like the fact that Ino and Shikamaru had been escorted from the main academy building to Chōji's house in the middle of the Akimichi clan compound to spend the night at Chōji's for the first time in years and their mothers had dropped off mission-ready gear bags. That Shikamaru's _mother_ was in uniform when she had done so, wearing a flak jacket he knew she had earned but he had never seen her in. That when they had woken up this morning, Chōza had shown no sign of sleeping that night, and was dressed in his armor.

Everything would be _completely_ fine, if he was the sort of person able to ignore the evidence in front of his eyes.

Shikamaru looked at Chōji, whose worry was visible on his face.

"Yeah," Chōji said, reluctantly. This was the longest any of them had seen Chōji without a bag of snacks of some kind in his hand. "If anything happens in the middle of the night down here, it'd be no good. I can take the middle watch," he offered.

"Okay with me," Ino answered. "I'll take the last one."

It would leave Shikamaru with the one where he should have at least some ambient light to work with just in case.

They managed to find a tree that was decently higher than the ones surrounding it, and set up to rest in the highest possible branches. It was just tall enough that with a bit of climbing and chakra, it was possible to look out over the treeline. Like this, the tower in the middle didn't seem so far away.

He spent the hours of his watch staring out into the rest of the forest. The occasional plume of smoke from the impact of a fire jutsu could be seen, and at one point someone out there must have started a true fire. It didn't last for long.

Shikamaru turned over to Chōji before too long, and slept fitfully. He woke up to the grey light of a cloud-covered twilight sky when Ino gripped his shoulder. The diffuse light would be almost as useless as darkness was, but the clouds were fast moving, heading west as though they were fleeing the sun, and looked like they would be gone soon.

They descended halfway, eating ration bars Shikamaru suspected they weren't supposed to have. Then again, this test had turned too real. While skilled shinobi could live off the land if needed, an experienced one shouldn't have to. Not being prepared or having a plan could kill the strongest and most powerful ninja. Tests like this always had fake parameters and didn't really matter, usually.

They set off again, Ino forcibly taking the lead once more.

Unlike the first day, where they had by complete chance not encountered any other teams, this time they skirted the battle between two other teams— from Kiri and Ame, an ugly match up with few specific advantages to either— and came upon the remnants of another, kunai and shuriken littering the ground. It was only going to get worse as time passed and they got closer to the tower.

Around mid-afternoon, with the bright summer sunlight streaming down in ways that created full shadows, they came across a team from Suna, poorly hidden in a tree hollow. The girl who was supposed to be on watch among them had dozed off. Even Shikamaru wasn't that lazy.

Shikamaru held a finger to his lips to the other two, before he crept closer, brows furrowing together in concentration. His shadow stretched forward slowly and clumsily, poking its way around as he tried to search for their scroll. He was still working on practicing Kageyose no Jutsu with his father.

Extending his shadow was increasingly becoming second nature, and he could even manage to control others with Kagemane no Jutsu by now, if only for short periods of time, but actually pushing his own shadow into being material enough to manipulate things was more difficult than he had expected it to be when Tou-san had first explained it to him. The fact the movements to control it weren't a simple one on one like with Kagemane were a pain.

It was still less troublesome to try this than to do an outright fight, even though if they were dumb enough to fall asleep like this they probably wouldn't be that difficult of a fight.

Ino brought her hands together for one of the Yamanaka techniques. Shikamaru's eyes widened before he narrowed them at her, the other end of his shadow wriggling from his nerves.

"Ino!" he hissed. "I can handle this!"

Her eyes shut, and Chōji had barely enough time to catch her before she slumped to the ground.

One of the sleeping bodies in the hollow woke and slowly sat up, patting himself down, eyes meeting Shikamaru's. He smirked in the way Ino did when he found the scroll, holding it up for Shikamaru and Chōji to see. It was the Scroll of Heaven. They were lucky. With that, they could go directly to the tower from here.

The body Ino was possessing slowly lowered the scroll down to set it right in front of Shikamaru's shadow, motioning for Shikamaru to grab the scroll and for them to leave, before it went and laid back down.

Shikamaru carefully pulled the scroll out, doing his best to keep it from scraping across the dirt. Any additional noise would be too much.

Ino in the Suna-nin's body motioned for them to move again.

Exchanging a concerned glance with Chōji, Shikamaru slipped the scroll into his bag as Chōji lifted Ino's body up, hefting her over his shoulder. They ran.

Ino's mind didn't return for several nerve-wracking minutes. Well beyond what they had ever had to wait before, even when she had missed.

Her use of that technique had never lasted this long before. Even accounting for however long it would take her mind to return to her body at a distance, how had she managed to at the lowest estimation more than double how long she could use it in a matter of weeks?

They stopped for just long enough in the branches of a tree for Chōji to set Ino down.

Her eyes gleamed, a giddy expression crossing her face, and she swept her hair back into place. "Did you see that?" she squealed. "They didn't notice at all!"

Shikamaru sighed, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "I had it handled, Ino. By moving around in that guy's body you could have woken the other two."

"Well, I didn't and it's not like you've got the fine control down with that technique anyways," she said, heat rising to her cheeks in a flush. "If it wasn't for me you probably would have botched it. Right, Chōji?"

Chōji's eyes widened as he looked between the two. "I... Ino, I don't know about that... I mean… Do we have to argue over this?" he asked, half-pleadingly. "Do we have to do this, right now?"

Shikamaru shut his eyes. "Chōji's right. Let's get a move on. If we keep going and do our best to avoid any of the other teams, we'll make it to the tower easily."

Ino huffed out a breath, but relented. "Fine."

She took the lead again, waiting only long enough for Shikamaru to hand the Scroll of Heaven to Chōji; keeping them split up until they reached the tower was the better strategy, as tempting as it was to give both of them to Chōji.

As a gambit, few people would expect that the powerhouse of their team would have both scrolls on him, and would target Shikamaru or Ino first, but it was too still too risky.

Tests had fake parameters.

They pushed ahead, slowly continuing their push deeper and deeper into the forest.

While they weren't running into anyone— Ino was making sure of that— there was something off and he couldn't figure out what.

It frustrated Shikamaru.

How was he supposed to strategize when he couldn't see everything in front of him?

It was beginning to get dark again, the muddy oranges of a sunset coloring the light, when Ino suddenly veered wildly off-course, heading away from the tower with a sudden burst of speed, leaping into the trees.

"Ino!" Shikamaru raised his voice as much as he dared to; she didn't respond, but to his annoyance only moved faster. She had heard him, she was just _ignoring him_. "What is she doing?" he muttered to himself.

Chōji slowed down for just long enough to match his pace with Shikamaru. "Shikamaru, I've got a bad feeling about this," Chōji said, worriedly. "Should we stop her? What's she doing? We're going the wrong way."

"Stop her from doing what?" Shikamaru asked, frustration in his voice. "I don't know what she's doing either, Chōji. I'm just as confused as you are."

Chōji swallowed.

Ino stopped on the curve of an immense tree trunk, as suddenly as she had bolted. It gave him and Chōji just enough time to catch up with her, as little distance and time as it had been.

Beneath them, there was a clearing where giant roots from the surrounding trees had risen above the earth before sinking back down, leaving tunnels that were wide and high enough that multiple grown men would be able to go through them. There were three figures just barely in sight taking shelter under one of them, preparing their camp for the night.

Shikamaru barely had time to recognize them as Konoha-nin before Ino pulled out multiple shuriken from her pouch, launching them at the other team with a wide curving throw that would make it less obvious what direction the attack had come from. Two of them wore their hitai-ate on bandanas that covered their hair with cloth masks covering most of their faces. The other one he recognized as the strange older teen with the info cards that Sasuke had verbally cut down in front of them right before the first test. Kabuto.

Shikamaru stared at Ino in shock. "What the hell are you doing? They're from our village!"

Cries of alarm and pain rose from below. The other genin left their shelter, now armed as they looked for their attackers. One of the masked ones— glasses over narrowed eyes squinting to look around, possibly incorrect prescription— yanked a shuriken from his bicep, letting it fall to the ground. That was too casual a move for genin, even ones that went through this exam as many times as had been claimed.

Apparently luring them out was what Ino had wanted, because she pressed her forefingers and thumbs together again, and Shikamaru didn't even have enough time to shout at her to not do it before her body slumped over. Shikamaru didn't know what he was expecting, but the way they almost immediately directed their attention at the trunk they were on was alarming. They had already been spotted.

"They have a Yamanaka with them!"

He barely dodged out of the way, dashing for the top of one of the raised roots below when the first wave of kunai sped through where he had been standing, and Chōji dropped to the ground. The angle from below and the trunk's towering height meant that Ino's body _should_ be safe from any ranged weapon attacks.

Dread blanketed over Shikamaru as fear pulsed through him when he landed.

There was killing intent in the air.

Only a couple weeks ago Asuma-sensei had exposed them to it for the first time, under the watchful eyes of their fathers. It was better for them to experience and recognize it for what it was in a safe, controlled scenario, rather than being hit by it by surprise on a mission, he had explained. Training had been short that day.

Either these guys wanted them to _think_ they were willing to kill them…

Or they just wanted to kill them.

Because Ino's opening attack had taken _everyone_ by surprise, Shikamaru wasn't willing to bet on the non lethal option.

That and the fact that the killing intent had only begun _after_ one of them realized Ino was a Yamanaka…

While some people were cagey about the clan of mind technique users, outright hostility wasn't the norm. An intent to kill wasn't normal— unless something you knew and didn't want discovered was at risk. For allies the worst would be embarrassment, not nearly enough cause to want to kill, which meant…

In spite of the spiral marked leaf symbol engraved on their hitai-ate, these were _not_ allies.

This was worse than a total drag.

Shikamaru threw out an arc of kunai, causing the three opposing shinobi— the one Ino was possessing as of yet unidentified— to scatter, giving Shikamaru enough time to jump backwards to get a better idea of his next move. He had no idea how to counter them at all, what to do. There was no strategy.

Chōji was frozen where he was standing.

"Chōji!" Shikamaru shouted. He resisted the urge to swear; that had never done anything helpful for Chōji in the past regardless of who it came from, and he doubted it would in this life or death situation Ino had dropped them into without warning. "Fight through it! This isn't nearly that bad!" A half lie. The killing intent was not nearly as bad as what Asuma-sensei had made them experience, but their fathers had been there to assure them it was safe. That had been controlled exposure. This wasn't.

The encouragement wasn't enough; if anything, Shikamaru had miscalculated. It had only put focus on Chōji.

Though Chōji finally began to move, reaching for his kunai holster, the masked one with glasses lunged for him. To Shikamaru's disgust, the man's body started to stretch, and his limbs coiled around Chōji, prying his arm away from the holster with one twining arm. Chōji shouted in surprise, trying to wrench himself free.

Ino's initial 'advantage', completely planless, was failing her. It was failing all of them.

The other masked one pulled a kunai out, throwing it at Kabuto, who narrowly blocked it with a thrown kunai of his own.

"Shikamaru, do something!" Kabuto— no, Ino in Kabuto's body— shouted. Ino stepped back, barely avoiding a close strike aimed at Kabuto's chest.

Shikamaru had no idea what to do.

Ino-Shika-Chō.

Ino-Shika-Chō.

They had formations for a reason.

He didn't need to come up with anything new; he needed to not overthink it.

Shikamaru twisted to look in Chōji's direction. His hands were close enough together; the enemy was trying to constrict around him entirely.

"Chōji! Use Baika no Jutsu!" he shouted, as he pressed his hands together for the rat seal. His shadow slinked forward as he directed it to stretch itself towards the body Ino was possessing and the other enemy nin. He latched his shadow onto that of Ino's attacker, and threw his arms backwards, giving Ino a moment of reprieve. In the short time he had hesitated, the dark-lens wearing shinobi had closed the distance that Ino had been trying to maintain.

From the corner of his eye, Shikamaru saw Chōji balloon outwards. There was a cracking noise and a shout as the shinobi with the bizarre technique untwisted himself as quickly as he could from Chōji, slumping to the ground. They could do this.

The moment of confidence disappeared with a realization.

His chakra was draining far more quickly than it should have.

"Your shadow techniques must be just solid enough for chakra absorption to work," the restrained ninja commented, vicious amusement in his voice. "Who would have guessed? I wonder how it affects Yamanakas."

Ino's borrowed eyes widened behind the glasses.

"Ino! End the technique!" Shikamaru broke his shadow away, letting it retract. In a matter of seconds, his chakra had been almost entirely drained. "Chōji! Get to her body! Get out of here!"

He couldn't see if Chōji followed through or not, his attention was too focused on what was happening in front of him.

To his disbelief, in spite of his warning, she wasted time to pull out another kunai instead, holding it backwards. She extended that arm, before testing it, flexing it inwards once, then wider for stronger momentum. Was she going to try to force a suicide move before leaving that body? If Ino timed it wrong—

The remaining enemy's fist shot out, grasping that wrist just before the kunai got close enough. The glow of chakra flared around it, temporarily made visible.

Synchronized screams tore out from not just Kabuto in front of him, but behind as well, from Ino on the tree trunk. Blood trickled out of Kabuto's nose, before he collapsed, and the screaming stopped entirely, leaving only silence.

The last ninja on Kabuto's team stood up, letting Kabuto drop to the ground.

The killing intent had never ended.

Shikamaru didn't have enough chakra left to fend him off in a fight _and_ flee. If the other ninja was left alive, he couldn't guarantee the other two would be able to hide from him or escape, if Shikamaru ran to join Chōji and Ino. So much for his hopes and dreams of becoming a salary ninja and all that. He'd have to haunt Ino for this. Dead before thirteen. It didn't cheer him any.

At least there were good enough shadows.

He heaved a breath of air.

A senbon sped through the air, just barely glinting in the remaining light, piercing the enemy's neck. He toppled over.

Shikamaru fled for the trees, not bothering to wait to see if it was a rescue or someone poaching.

Chōji was running ahead of him with a visible limp that was getting worse, carrying Ino with one arm, his other swinging uselessly at his side. Even now, from where Shikamaru was, he could tell Chōji was already beginning to slow in spite of the fear that was fueling him. Blood was flowing from Ino's nose, just as it had from Kabuto's. She showed no signs of stirring.

He had no idea what had just happened, but nearly everything that could go wrong had.

Chōji's leg gave out after a half mile of running, and Shikamaru was barely able to prevent him from crashing entirely.

Ino was still unconscious. The blood had stopped, leaving a dried crust that traced her upper lip.

Shikamaru was so tired. He had never trained to reach this point in his life. At some point, tears had started to well up in Shikamaru's eyes, and he wiped them away with a balled up fist.

"I don't think I can walk like this," Chōji told him through gritted teeth. Tears stained his face, creating ugly blotches of red that partially blended in with Chōji's cheek markings. Now that they had stopped, he could see a worrying stain of blood soaking through the bandages of Choji's right leg. "I don't think I should have ran on this, Shikamaru."

Unconscious Ino. Brink of chakra exhaustion Shikamaru. Injured Chōji.

Ino-Shika-Chō.

What a winning combination.

Shikamaru laughed, brokenly, cutting it off before he started to cry for real.

The tower was _so close_ and yet so far.

He wrestled his bag off of his shoulders as he dropped to his knees, shoving it open to dig for the exam scroll. All of the running had shifted the contents around.

Chōza-ji had told them what would happen if they opened the scroll ahead of time.

Tests had fake parameters.

The 'glory' of becoming a chūnin wasn't worth this. He didn't care anymore.

The pressure of a hand made itself known on his shoulder just before he could open it.

"You don't need to resort to that," a soft-toned voice said.

Shikamaru slowly turned around.

Naruto's friends from the rogue Kirigakure faction stood behind him, Haku's hand pulling away. The one with the sword tilted his head in greeting towards Shikamaru, his back mostly to him. The sword was unwrapped, both of the blue haired teenager's hands around its handles. Chōjūrō. That was his name. The meek expression he had in the exam hall was gone, all of his focus on making sure no one stuck up on them from behind.

"You're Naruto-kun's friends," Haku said. In spite of it being the second night, the older teen barely looked ruffled from being in here for so long.

"Yeah, friends," Shikamaru replied dully.

"We heard the screaming," Suigetsu told him, from behind Haku. "Would have been nice to have a real fight for once if _someone_ didn't decide to use senbon." His eyes flicked at Haku.

"I was hoping that we could meet up with Naruto-kun before entering the tower, but we haven't seen his team," Haku told him. "If you don't mind accepting it, we can help escort you the rest of the way. It isn't that far."

Shikamaru stared. "Really? Why?"

"Zabuza-sama instructed me to make sure we gain allies," the older teen told him. That was more to the point than Shikamaru had expected.

Suigetsu snorted. "He told me to stop being an asshole. Neither's going to happen."

"We should say yes," Chōji whispered. Shikamaru couldn't tell if it was from the pain or from Chōji trying to be discreet.

"We accept," Shikamaru said.

Hopefully Ino would wake up.

* * *

I woke up feeling confused and thirsty, dappled light filtering through weaved together branches that still had leaves on them. They had been tied together using strips of olive green cloth, anchored down by kunai that had been driven into the ground. It was the same style of basket weave I had shown them, just scaled up.

I was still Sasuke.

I slowly sat up, barely avoiding scraping my head on wood. It smelled vaguely musty, and the space was cramped. My neck ached like I had slept wrong, and my lips were parched. I must have been unconscious within the dream, but I was exhausted, not rested at all. I felt light-headed, almost floaty. I hadn't felt this awful since… since… I shoved the thought away.

"Sasuke!" Sakura whispered. She sounded relieved, despite the low volume. Sakura twisted around to look at me with worried green eyes. The jacket was gone, presumably sacrificed for camouflage. An armor mesh undershirt was visible under her black shirt, peeking out and covering her elbows. "How are you feeling?"

"Thirsty," I said, trying to swallow. Sasuke's voice was hoarse; it actually hurt to talk.

She leaned over, reaching into one of the packs, and pulled out a water canteen, which she handed to me.

I opened it and wet my lips before I started to chug it.

"You've been asleep for nearly two days," she told me. That was longer than it had been in the story, wasn't it? "You had a fever and you wouldn't wake up… I was so scared. It didn't break until this morning."

I finished draining the canteen, letting it fall into my lap, but it didn't land the way I expected to.

Looking down, Naruto's jacket was across the top of my legs. It was half folded on itself. It must have been covering me before I had sat up. "Where's Naruto?"

"He went to go get more water," she said. "That canteen you finished off was the last we had."

"Oh," I went.

"I didn't know he was the demon fox…" She looked down, her hair draping to hide her face. "He's been in the same class as us the whole time… Iruka-sensei's parents died when it attacked the village, did you know? I heard some of the teachers talking about it, once. I didn't know why…" Sakura looked up. She wasn't meeting my eyes. "Do you think all the adults know? Is that why they've always looked at him like that? I thought the reason nobody liked him was because of all his dumb pranks… I didn't… Do you think we're just supposed to be there to keep him under control just in case?" Her eyes welled up. "Or to be a distraction?"

"I don't know," I said.

There was a rustling of branches and leaves.

"Please don't hate me," Naruto said. He shoved his gear bag in first, before he crawled in. With all three of us in here, the space was cramped. His voice cracked. "I'm not the Kyūbi. _I'm not_. Even Iruka-sensei said—" he choked. "It's just _sealed_ in me, there's a _difference._ I swear." Tears were gathering in his eyes, too.

I was so unprepared to deal with this on multiple levels.

"I—" Sakura faltered. "You're dumb, goofy, loud Naruto. You couldn't even pass the final exam at the academy with the rest of us the right way. How can there be something that awful inside of you?"

"I don't know," Naruto said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I don't have any parents or any family. The Yondaime needed a baby and chose me to seal the Kyūbi into. Maybe they died when the Kyūbi attacked the village. Maybe they're alive and don't want me anymore. I don't know. They didn't even want me at the orphanage, and they take just about anybody."

I _refused_ to tear up over how sad and pitiful Naruto looked.

"You're not allowed to talk like that," Sakura said, finally crying. "You're— you're _supposed_ to—" She cut herself off forcibly, instead sniffling and wiping her face across her forearm. "What are we supposed to do?"

"You can't tell anybody," Naruto insisted. He had finally started to cry as well, when Sakura had started.

 _Fuck_.

I reached out with both arms, and dragged them in for a hug. I felt extremely awkward about it, but _two_ crying middle schoolers in close quarters was too much.

It didn't really work, anyways; the sobbing just got worse, the attempt at physical comfort triggering another onslaught of tears.

It lasted for several minutes, at the end of which we were _all_ damp.

Naruto pulled his shirt up, and blew his nose into the bottom hem, before looking at both of us again. "Are you sure you don't hate me?" he asked.

Sakura laughed. It was weak, unsure, and partially strained from being forced, but it was still there. "How are we supposed to hate you? You're our teammate." She gave him a watery smile.

Naruto started to cry again, though at least this time it was paired with a smile.

The tension that I didn't even know until just now had been in this cramped space disappeared.

I rubbed my eyes and tried to figure out what we needed to do. The dreams so far seemed to expect certain moments to be hit, at least, and if this was going to be like Wave… Sitting around in an animal's den, hiding from the rest of the forest, wasn't going to make it end anytime soon.

"We need to find the other scroll we need and get to the tower," I said.

"Oh, uh, we already got the other scroll," Naruto said. He leaned forward, opening Sakura's bag to reveal the Scroll of Earth, nestled on top.

I felt oddly disappointed. Confused, too. "How?"

"After I dragged you both in here, I put a perimeter of traps around the area," Sakura said, looking a bit sheepish. "I didn't know how long either of you would be unconscious and since Sensei said we shouldn't risk opening the scroll unless we had to…" The encounter with Orochimaru had shook her.

"I added another layer when I woke up," Naruto added. He ducked his head, looking down. "It caught one of those jerk teams from Water and they had the scroll we needed, so I took it." That was one way to distinguish between the different Kiris, but I was more surprised that in spite of the fear they both had just exhibited from Naruto's secret being revealed— if for very different reasons— they had been able to work together so well. Then again, not wanting to die was probably a powerful motivator on its own.

As weirdly disappointed as I was at the fact we _weren't_ going to have to fight for a secondary scroll at all, I was still relieved. I didn't want to fight. Even in a 'the children aren't allowed to murder each other this time' edition of the Chūnin Exams arc.

"Oh." I didn't know what else to say.

"You should at least drink more water before we leave," Sakura told me.

The mention of water made me realize something terrible: After shifting around, I needed to pee. At least in Wave there had been toilets. It was a lot harder to ignore when the best option in a forest was a bush.

I pushed Naruto's jacket off and leaned forward until I was on my palms to crawl out.

"Uh, where are you going?"

I felt my ears burn red. "I… need to go."

"Need to go?" Naruto's brows furrowed together, before he realized what I was saying. "Oh! I need to piss too, I'll go with you."

I felt a portion of my soul leave my body. Oh, God. "No!"

Sakura made a face. "Naruto! I don't want to hear you talking about that!"

"But Sakura! I really need to piss! And if Sasuke's got to piss too, he shouldn't be alone after he's been passed out for so long, should he?"

It hadn't taken that long for the normal dynamic to return, if at my expense.

To my horror, Naruto's argument actually won Sakura over.

I did my best to keep the moment from scarring itself into my mind forever by closing my eyes and ignoring Naruto the whole time.

The den was below a fallen tree, a wide and thick thing that kept this spot in the forest clear enough for there to be a gap in the tree cover, letting light pour down unfiltered from the leaves. It had been there long enough for shrubs to start growing around it, with larger young trees pushing upwards from its remains. The weaved together screen of branches was dense enough that it neatly blended with the bush that was right next to it, partially obstructing the slope that led down.

It was silent except for the occasional cawing of birds, high in the trees. Even Naruto was quiet.

"We're about a hundred feet away," Naruto said. It was half-whisper, and he didn't quite meet my eyes as he pointed out in the direction I assumed was where the encounter with Orochimaru had occurred. "I went and looked."

I shrugged, not sure what to say. I didn't want to think about what the remains of the snake would look like— or _smell_ like— after this long.

Naruto seemed to accept it for now, and we made our way back in, where Sakura forced me to drink two canteens worth of water before she decided it was enough.

It was past noon by the time we left.

We kept to the highest parts of the trees, as far up as we could, Sakura taking point. I was kept in the middle, with Naruto behind me. Occasionally he would lag behind, from setting a trap to limit how easily we could be followed. For some reason, I couldn't get rid of the nagging sensation of feeling bothered that they were keeping me in the center, like they thought I needed to be protected.

Somehow, confusingly and bizarrely— _this feels too easy_ — we made it to the tower, without having seen any other genin. It made me feel unsettled. More teams had gotten through the first exam, but we hadn't encountered anyone except Orochimaru. Or, I hadn't, at least.

Then again, there would probably be more caution _because_ of Orochimaru; I somehow doubted Kakashi would be the only one to let that knowledge leak. Would have been. At least, I couldn't see many theoretical jōnin-sensei particularly wanting to let the genin they had been in charge of for however many years die from cluelessness in this kind of situation. I wasn't even a _real_ teacher and I was slowly becoming fond of the freshmen in the class I TA'd for. At least some of them.

Exchanging uncertain looks, we entered one set of doors.

"It's empty…" Sakura commented.

Naruto craned his head up, looking at the balconies above. "You think there'd be _somebody_ here..."

The large sign with its missing words was on the other end of the room, and we stopped in front of it, pulling the scrolls out, and opening them, dropping both the moment the smoke started to emanate.

I half-realized that in the short time that happened, not only had I slipped shuriken into my hands, Sakura and Naruto had armed themselves as well.

Iruka appeared in the smoke, arms folded over each other, a grin on his face.

"Hey, you three—" he started.

Before he could finish, Naruto dove at him. "Iruka-sensei!" The words were half-choked out, as Iruka half-instinctively reared back before he realized what was happening. Naruto sobbed against the chūnin's chest, the kunai that had been in his hand moments before dropping to the tiles with a clatter.

Next to me, Sakura started to cry again.

Iruka looked completely bewildered for a moment, wrapping an arm around Naruto, his expression turning to one of concern and worry. "What? Are you guys okay?" This had derailed what he was supposed to say entirely. Naruto somehow managing to get through to this point was supposed to be a _happy_ moment filled with congratulations; instead, Iruka got to experience _two_ of his students having breakdowns in front of him.

I had the sobering suspicion that the fact that we _didn't_ have any other encounters outside of Orochimaru had ended up leading to this breakdown. The other fights in the show itself had been mostly in the range of Team Seven's abilities, basically serving as proof that they could handle themselves.

Instead, I had dreamed about us getting thoroughly and utterly beaten down, not even worth being finished off. Nothing to serve as a reinforcement or a confidence boost.

There was movement on one of the balconies.

I jerked my head up to look.

The ninja that Orochimaru had stolen the face of in the series was in mid-jump off the balcony, aiming directly for me, a double-ended kusarigama swinging towards me, the other sickle in their hand.

"Sasuke! Move!"

I had barely enough time to process Iruka running towards me, pushing me out of the way with palm, his arm fully extended. I had just enough time to see the chain wrap around Iruka's forearm before I hit the ground. Blood splattered into the air.

A shout.

"Iruka-sensei!"

That was his hand on the floor. It was no longer attached to his arm like it was supposed to be.

Far too late, I threw the shuriken in my hand.

* * *

I woke up damp and sweaty, chilled through even with my blankets. My t-shirt and leggings were soaked through. I sneezed, setting off a terrible ache in my neck as I shoved myself up and out of bed, shivering. I felt less exhausted than I had the last few days, but that wasn't saying much.

It _would_ figure I would get sick.

I trudged into the bathroom, where I shoved the drain stopper in, and ran the tap, as hot as I could tolerate.

I wound up falling asleep in the bathtub, only waking up when I accidentally went under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, time for a long author's note!
> 
> The second half of 2020, since I started to write this fic, in fact, has been a whirlwind of a time for me. I turned the big 3-0, successfully completed my goal for Camp NaNoWriMo, one of my siblings was diagnosed with cancer (in the middle of a pandemic!), I started my final semester for undergraduate degree, and I managed to finish it. (It just took one global recession, a few years in the military, and a pandemic for me to get it finished. Talk about a wait!) 2020 is closing out on us, and while I missed getting to have Thanksgiving with my family, and making tamales with my aunts and cousins for Christmas and New Years, I'm glad for at least some of the things it's brought. 
> 
> I hope everyone is able to look forward to better things in 2021, and that whatever struggles and issues 2020 may have brought you are able to be resolved or overcome. 
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who's been reading, it's meant a lot to know people are not just reading it, but enjoying it and are even willing to comment.


	12. See What You Do Next

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More things fall together (or apart).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the chapter delay! January was a hard month to exist in. 
> 
> Much thanks to the spinchful Tavina and the eloquent PoorCynic for beta-reading.

I barely avoided tripping over my own feet.

Another dream.

"What were you gonna say?" Naruto asked.

While he didn't look anywhere near as upset and miserable as he had at the end of the last dream, Naruto didn't look as peppy as he had in the previous dreams. Iruka still being in the hospital, along with Chouji and Ino, must have been weighing on him.

"It doesn't matter," I answered, trying to squash annoyance at that knowledge down.

Naruto made a face. "Fine, you don't have to tell me how training with Kaka-sensei's going if you're gonna be like that. You lucked out. He's probably teaching you all sorts of cool stuff," he complained guilelessly.

"And you're not?" We were in the village, which along with knowing that Ino and Chouji were in the hospital meant that this had to have been after the prelims- no, no preliminaries.

The knowledge I didn't want said those had never happened. All in all, only sixteen people of those who arrived at the tower in time were willing or able to fight. Since that meant there would be only eight matches to begin with, between that and the attack inside of the tower, they had canceled having preliminaries entirely. There would only be the main tournament.

Eight matches, that would go down to four, then two, then one final.

I wondered how many of those they'd manage to get through, with the invasion. They hadn't gotten very far in the original, from what I remembered.

Naruto looked annoyed. "No!" He huffed. "Ebisu _and_ Ero-sennin both blew off teaching me anything super cool I could use!" Naruto mimed pushing up glasses. "'You should take this as a chance to work on your foundational skills since you won't be winning your match,'" he said, in what was probably supposed to be a mimicry of Ebisu's voice. "And then! And then! They're _both_ making me work on learning kanji and stuff! Can you believe it? Ebisu is giving me _homework!_ He actually shoved a bunch of dumb worksheets at me!" He grumbled under his breath something I couldn't quite make out. "It's awful because Ero-sennin _agrees with him!_ "

"Is that supposed to be a bad thing?" I wasn't able to avoid squinting. Weren't those needed for being literate if we were supposed to be speaking and reading Japanese?

"Why do I gotta learn that kinda thing? I can mostly get by fine," he complained. "If it's real important they have the hiragana on top or I can figure it out, mostly. The only reason I'm trying is because Ero-sennin says he might teach me fuinjutsu if I make an effort and I guess it might be kinda cool? Tenten from Gai-sensei's team showed me her storage seals while we were waiting for the last exam to finish and if I learn how to do that then Sakura wouldn't be able to complain I'm bringing too many ramen cups on missions. I don't know why Iruka-sensei _told_ them I struggled with kanji anyway! How could he do that to me? I've been taking him ramen and even other food into the hospital!" Naruto seemed very aggrieved at having a higher level of literacy forced on him than he cared about having.

If he was hoping that _I_ was going to side with him, he was shit out of luck. Higher comprehension skills from reading would only help him. "Won't you need to know more kanji if you become Hokage? That's a lot of paperwork to deal with." I definitely remembered that in Shippuden it hit the piled-up paperwork level of 'I have tenure and I no longer give a damn' of some professors' offices, at least.

Naruto physically cringed, before he made it clear he refused to back down. "Then I guess I'll have to learn _some_ … But maybe I'll just have more people do the paperwork for me! Then I won't have to read as much!"

That was honestly a better solution than Tsunade's in the show.

"You'd still have to know what they're doing the paperwork for in the first place," I pointed out.

"You don't need to take their side," he complained.

"Is it really such a bad thing that they aren't training you for your first match the way you want?" I had to wonder who it was he was supposed to be facing off for the first one that no one thought he would have a chance, even _with_ a month of training.

"It doesn't mean I want to look like I suck fighting against Haku! How am I supposed to make chūnin if I don't have anything cool to show really off?"

Well, that made sense, and I had to agree with them. Naruto was nowhere near Haku's level, a month of training or not. I doubted the only things being rammed into Naruto's head were reading and writing skills, but to him it probably didn't feel that way if everyone else had decided he had no chance in his match.

Even though it was completely true by any standard. I also couldn't see Haku deciding to throw his match to let Naruto win. Not in a 'friendly' match. It wasn't _like_ they would have to fight to the death.

"You can make _shadow clones_ ," I pointed out. "Which you learned _illegally_ , didn't you? It can be cool on its own if you don't end up tripping over yourself and get into arguments with your clones."

Naruto pouted. "Sometimes I just wanna complain sometimes, you know. You don't have to be so serious and so 'mature' and 'responsible' all the time." From the way he was saying it, he'd probably heard the last two thrown around.

It soon became obvious where we were going; the stall for Ichiraku's was in sight.

Naruto, however, frowned as we approached. "Where's Sakura? She said she'd be getting here before us." He looked around, clearly hoping she would suddenly materialize just by saying it.

I had no idea. I shrugged.

We waited outside of the stall for several minutes, Naruto looking increasingly impatient. I was more surprised that we were actually _waiting_ , instead of just going ahead and eating without her.

Thankfully, Sakura straggled into view. Even though she had never had her hand forced into cutting her hair in the forest, it was still a surprise to see it was still long, somehow, made stranger still by the fact that her hair was plaited into a tight braid. Exhaustion was all over her face and etched into her body language, but so was a mix of determination and delight.

"Hey! Sakura! Hurry up!" Naruto shouted.

She did, but not the way he was hoping for; instead, she grabbed us both by the wrist and started dragging us away. "This is no time for ramen, Naruto. When I got home from training, my mom said Ino woke up! We're going to go see her!"

Naruto yanked his arm away. "That's great but uh, I still told Iruka-sensei I would bring him something to eat." He looked abashed. "The time I forgot I got scolded by a nurse since he had already turned down _their_ food."

Sakura's expression softened for a moment, before hardening again. "Then we can grab him a bento from somewhere on the way!"

With that, she gripped onto Naruto again.

I figured it was easier to just go along with it.

Sakura at least lessened Naruto's complaints about not bringing Iruka 'real' food by paying for it, picking out a larger bento with a hearty helping of beef in it that had Naruto giving the price sticker a nervous look even after as she was handing the money to the cashier.

I wasn't sure what I expected. The inside of a dream magical ninja hospital smelled just like… a normal, real hospital. Overly clean and antiseptic in a way I was never going to feel comfortable with again, that I would prefer to forget entirely.

The receptionist in the hospital lobby ignored us entirely entirely as Sakura walked straight to the stairs, which was different. While there were two elevators nearby, there was no one waiting for them and they didn't seem to be in use, no light indicating they were moving between floors. Then again, I supposed that _most_ ninja would be uncomfortable or just not used to using an elevator; the stairs would be much faster unless someone actually _needed it._

We exited into a hallway, and Naruto immediately beelined down one way, forcing Sakura and I to follow; presumably Ino was also on this floor, since Sakura looked down the other and hesitated before going after Naruto.

Naruto came to a sudden stop at an open door, and I barely stopped in time to avoid running into him. Over his shoulder, I was able to look inside.

Iruka was in a black t-shirt and loose pants, sitting on the hospital bed inside of the room with one elbow propped up on a metal cart as a medic-nin wrapped up what was clearly a _nub_. There was a peek of flesh forced together by stitches before it was covered up by a thin cloth— almost see-through— that had something in ink written on it. There was another roll of bandage on the cart next to Iruka's elbow that looked much thicker.

He caught notice of us. "Oh, hey, you three." He looked up at the medic-nin. "I can wrap the rest of it once you're done with this one, Yuzuri-san," Iruka said. He managed a grin. "It's not that hard one-handed." He actually waved with the mostly-bandaged arm.

Naruto stifled a half-choked sound.

Sakura at least managed to say something, after a couple seconds had passed."Iruka-sensei… that's really not funny."

 _I_ thought it was funny. At least kind of.

The medic-nin, a serious looking woman with long brown hair in a braided bun, frowned deeply at him. "Umino-san, if you want to stay on the active roster like you insist, you have to follow the recovery plan, which includes _me_ doing _both_ layers of bandages."

"'Recovery plan?'" Sakura echoed. She slipped into the room past me and Naruto. Naruto followed her in. I stayed at the door frame. "You're going to stay active? Iruka-sensei, you lost a hand!"

"My non-dominant hand," Iruka told her, as Yuzuri finished wrapping the thinner cloth up, tucking it neatly in under itself and moved on to the normal bandage. "It'll take some work, but if I can learn how to manage seals with one hand it'll be fine."

"That's _if_ you don't try anything until your arm's finished healing," the medic-nin said sharply. "That attack managed to cut through a tenketsu point and if it's not permanently sealed off, you'll risk blowing the rest of your arm off."

"What?" Naruto barely avoided squeaking. "He got his hand chopped off! How does that mean he can blow up?!"

"That can happen?" I wasn't able to resist asking.

"It's incredibly rare, but possible," Yuzuri answered. "Umino-san was fortunate there was a Hyūga medic in position. Tenketsu can be disabled, but if they're partially damaged it can be explosive if any chakra is actively molded. The inner bandage is a temporary suppression seal."

Naruto took a step backwards.

"It wouldn't be _actually_ explosive, Naruto. I don't have enough chakra for _that_ ," Iruka told him.

"Yeah but… if it's temporary… doesn't that mean the seal on the inside is degrading?" Naruto's brow was crinkled together. "That was the word Ero-sennin used."

"You shouldn't call Jiraiya-sama that, Naruto."

"'Jiraiya-sama?'" Yuzuri repeated.

"Yeah! He's teaching me stuff," Naruto said. He seemed completely unaware of the impact those words had on the medic-nin, who straightened slightly.

"Jiraiya-sama's the best fuinjutsu user Konoha has," Yuzuri murmured, under her breath. She shook her head a bit, refocusing on her task, and soon was done, this heralded by a soft glow of light emanating from under the top bandage before she released her hold on the end of what remained of Iruka's arm. "There you go, Umino-san. It's healing well, so we should be able to apply the permanent seal without any problems soon."

"Thanks, Yuzuri-san," Iruka said to her earnestly. Iruka was a surprisingly good patient, even down a limb. Then again, Iruka was always a pretty positive character.

The medic-nin left, sparing one last glance at Naruto, who didn't seem to notice. He walked over and took the bento out, setting it on the side table. "We brought you dinner!" he said cheerfully. "It would have been ramen but Sakura-chan didn't want to wait."

"You heard Ino woke up?" Iruka asked Sakura, who nodded. "Chōji let me know. I haven't gone to see her yet since the medic-nin came in right after that. Why don't I go with you three?"

Naruto squinted at him. "Are you allowed to do that? I know you're not allowed to leave the _hospital…_ "

Iruka chuckled. "Yes, Naruto, I'm allowed to walk around and visit people inside the hospital. It's not a prison." He looked around, before grabbing a sling that was on the end of the bed, and, with some awkward adjusting, his movements clumsy and slow, Iruka pulled it on and put it in place, before nestling his arm in it so it would be cradled against his chest. The fact he was missing a hand wasn't immediately obvious with it on. To my embarrassment, he noticed I was watching. "I don't want to shock her, Sasuke. It can wait."

He pushed his feet into the sandals sitting right on the edge of the bed, before standing up.

The walk to Ino's hospital room wasn't very far at all, but Naruto alternated between sticking right next to Iruka and dashing ahead the moment he heard anything. He glowered at anyone else who came too close to Iruka, which meant nearly everyone in the way. Naruto seemed to have decided 'too close' was anything closer than the other side of the very wide hospital corridor, at least nine feet away.

At least Iruka seemed amused by it.

Sakura hesitated a few steps away from the open door I assumed led into Ino's room. From where I was standing, I couldn't see the inside, but the room curtains didn't seem to be drawn.

The hesitance bothered me.

Before I could think about it anymore, I stepped forward, and grabbed her by the shoulder. "She's going to _need_ her friends," I said, and before she could respond, I pushed her forward. "That's you."

Sakura had no choice but to go ahead, since Naruto broke away from Iruka to stand with me behind her. She stepped inside.

The inside of the room was crowded, but my attention was focused on Sakura, and the bed's occupant.

Ino's hair was down, and she was wearing a hospital gown, unlike Iruka. The bed had been adjusted so she could sit up, and she had torn her attention away from one side of her bed to look at us. It was a bit too intently for my comfort, but after a moment she spoke, her voice almost wobbly and unsure. "Sakura?" As though she wasn't actually _sure_ who we were supposed to be.

The determination that Sakura had shown up until this point completely melted away, and barely choked off with a sob. "Ino!" She dashed over to the side of the bed, and pulled Ino into a hug.

As I entered the room, I looked around, averting my attention from Sakura and Ino's tearfilled reunion. Chōji, to my surprise, was in a wheelchair, by the foot of the bed, and Ino's parents were on the other side of the bed by the window. Chōji looked awful, with one leg and an arm in a cast. Neither of Ino's parents looked like they had been getting that much sleep, for that matter. Inoichi was dressed in a grey uniform like the proctors for the first exam had been, and looked exhausted and worn out. He spared a nod towards us as we entered, but his attention was more focused on Iruka.

Inoichi walked around the edge of the bed, and over to Iruka. "Iruka-sensei. I hope you're doing well."

"Inoichi-san, Suzuka-san, I would have come by sooner, but…" Iruka wordlessly tapped the slinged arm with his remaining hand. "Medic-nin don't appreciate their appointments being skipped."

"No, they don't," Inoichi agreed.

Without saying anything further, both men departed from the room, Inoichi closing the door behind him. Whatever they were going to talk about was _clearly_ not meant for the kids to overhear, then.

Naruto eyed the door, and then the bed, before deciding to go and stand by Chōji. "Are they gonna let you out so you can go watch the tournament?" he asked. His voice was pitched slightly quieter than he usually managed.

Chōji sighed, and shook his head. "No. I'm not allowed since they think I might hurt my leg again. I won't even get to have anything from the concession stands and I heard they're gonna be making special food from Water _and_ Wave." It occurred to me that I had no idea where Ame was supposed to be, but from Chōji's perspective it didn't seem like it mattered when it came to food.

Naruto made a face. "No one can bring you anything?" He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Kā-san's gonna be busy working and so's Tou-san. And all of you guys are in the opening matches," Chōji said glumly.

"Uh… if I don't win my match I can try to send a clone with food," Naruto answered. He sounded reluctant to even admit the possibility.

"Clones can't do that," Chōji replied. He sounded skeptical. "Besides, you weren't even able to do them in the academy."

"I learned a real cool version!" Naruto insisted. "And they're solid and stuff, too." He actually began to raise his hands up.

I grabbed one of his arms. "We're in a _hospital room_ ," I reminded him.

Naruto looked sheepish. "Oh yeah. Even if it's just a few it'd get crowded in here, heh."

Chōji's eyes widened. "So you _can_? I'll make sure I give you a list of food to look out for!"

Naruto swallowed. "Uh… A list?"

"I'll pay you back!"

I looked back over towards the bed. Ino and Sakura had by now mostly calmed down, and the only sign that Sakura had been crying was a bit of puffiness under her eyes. She and Ino were holding hands.

"I'm happy you're alright," I said, not entirely sure of _what_ to say. I shoved my hands into my pockets. Sasuke's pockets. I did know that from my own extended hospital stint that it had been terrible and isolating for people who claimed to be close to me to not show up at all. At least with this absurd dream scenario I was able to encourage Sakura to make what _was_ the right choice. That I knew what the right decision to make was. Words, on the other hand…

"Thanks," she said, giving me a weak smile.

"Will Ino be allowed to go to the tournament, Suzuka-ba?" Sakura asked.

"Hey, yeah, she should be able to go!" Naruto added, only now realizing the overly emotional moment had ended at last.

Ino's mother shook her head. "Ino-chan still needs time to recover." While she wasn't nearly as frosty as Sakura's mother had been towards Naruto, she was still very reserved. I couldn't tell if it was just how she was or because of Naruto.

Naruto squinted at Ino, before he approached to examine her closely, an almost cautious expression on his face as he did so.

Ino only looked back at him with a mildly confused expression on her face. I realized that at no point had she really looked— or acted— like her usual confident self, if she wasn't reacting to Naruto being Naruto. It wasn't just having woken up that was the cause, then, but something else?

"Uh… you didn't hit your head or anything, did you?" he asked, confused.

She shook her head. "I was using one of our techniques when something happened," Ino said, frowning in concentration. "Tou-chan says I won't remember anything from after I started it, and that it's going to take time for me to remember everything else."

"Do I need to tell you who I am?" Naruto looked completely baffled at this point.

"Um…"

Naruto took that as a yes. "We were classmates! I'm Uzumaki Naruto and I'm gonna be—"

"-Hokage," Ino cut him off. She was staring at him, all of her focus aimed at Naruto. "You're going to be the Hokage."

It was intense enough that it was off-putting, and I wasn't even the one being stared at.

"Yeah," Naruto said, after awhile. "I wanna be." He was clearly unsure how to take this specific kind of validation. I couldn't blame him. It was different from the last time Ino had backed him up on it, somehow.

There was an awkward silence, eventually broken by Chōji. "Why don't you tell Ino about the training you guys are doing?" he suggested, clearly grasping for a subject.

"Oh!" Sakura said. "We're not just training with Kakashi-sensei for the tournament."

Ino's eyebrows furrowed together. "You're in the tournament?"

Sakura nodded. "At least for the opening round! We made it, and so did Hinata's team. There's also a team from Ame and Haku-sempai's team."

"Um, and Shikamaru, too," Naruto said, looking at everything else in the room except at Ino.

With that, a brief moment of tension breached the surface. Chōji was in here, and so were we, but the mention of Shikamaru had Chōji, Sakura, and Naruto looking away from Ino for a moment.

"Well, Kakashi-sensei actually has friends, can you believe it?" Sakura said, her voice a bit strained with the attempt at making light gossip to keep Ino updated. "We're still doing some training with him, but he asked for help with me and Naruto. Tenzō-sensei's nice but strict. He's teaching me some kenjutsu and even jutsu!"

Tenzō. Wait. _Yamato?_

"He can make a creepy face," Naruto muttered. "And his eyes when he does it…" He shuddered, just slightly overdoing it.

"Kenjutsu?" Ino asked. She sounded surprised.

"Mmhm. I don't think I'll keep it up after this for _real_ , but between my first match and then there being a kenjutsu user in the tournament, Tenzō-sensei thinks it's a good idea that I have a grip on the basics there. Apparently it isn't that common for chūnin, but a lot of tokubetsu and jōnin have some skill at kenjutsu and it's better to have some practice sooner than later, if only to know how to fight them." Sakura sounded like she had given deep thought on this.

Kenjutsu… I had, for a stint in college, done fencing. The saber was somewhere in my coat closet, tucked out of the way. Not for the first time, I felt the strong sting of annoyance at myself for giving up that hobby for my ex. I had the gear, but not the ability to do it anymore. The boyfriend hadn't bothered to stick around. Maybe I would have been better off sticking to the fencing club and not giving him the time in the first place.

"You know who your first match is?" Ino's voice shook me out of feeling sorry for myself. Sanity aside, it was probably better to be focusing on all of this, especially since it wasn't like _hoping_ for alcohol was going to help me here.

"We all do," Naruto said, before Sakura could. "The proctor said we weren't gonna do any preliminaries at the tower 'cause of—" he caught Sakura's warning look and the free hand balled into a fist— "—all the stuff that happened especially since there weren't _too too_ many people, but they still told us who got who for the first matches. Sakura got this jerk from Amegakure who couldn't stop talking about how _cool_ and _awesome_ his village is, Sasuke's match is gonna be against Chōjūrō, and I got Haku." Naruto made a face.

"That team who are a year ahead of us, with Hinata's cousin, they're in the tournament, too." Chōji added. He reached into the bag of potato chips he had, before pushing some into his mouth. After he was done chewing and swallowed it all, he started to speak again. "Asuma-sensei said this is the first time in ages so many recent Konoha genin made it this far, the last time he visited."

"You all did an _amazing_ job, getting as far as you did," Ino's mother spoke up. Her eyes were focused on her daughter, hands clenching her knees. "Even if this exam had been normal." Her voice sounded almost choked.

"Kā-san…" Ino's voice sounded wobbly.

There was a moment of nerves in the air that was centered around Ino and her mother; a twelve year old girl crying was one thing, but I realized that Sakura, Naruto, and Chōji were wary of if Ino's _mother_ was going to start. Twelve and thirteen year olds were still young enough that the idea of adults crying was significantly more uncomfortable and unsettling than anything else.

I scrambled for the first thing I could think of.

"Here's something interesting. Naruto's finally being forced to learn everything he skipped out on in class," I said, casually.

It worked. The moment vanished when Ino's mother let out the lightest breath of a laugh.

"What? Hey, that's no fair," Naruto grumbled, though he seemed to realize what the goal of that subject change was; he wasn't protesting as loud as he might have otherwise.

"Naruto has _two_ people trying to train him and he's _completely_ clueless about how much time it means is being put into him," Sakura said, taking it and going with it.

Chōji's eyebrows crinkled together. "How'd you end up with two?"

Naruto's eyes lit up at the opportunity to tell a story. "I ran into this annoying brat of a kid who turned out to be Jii-jii's grandson! Konohamaru is actually pretty okay though, I'm gonna teach him everything _I_ know."

"Konohamaru? You like him?" Chōji sounded surprised. "The one time we met him he tried to ambush Asuma-sensei by jumping off a staircase."

"That sounds like him," Naruto agreed. "And yeah! He's a kinda dumb kid but he wants to be Hokage too! He's at the academy _and_ has a private sensei, too. An' his private tutor, Ebisu, turns out to have known Kakashi-sensei when they were in the academy. Which figures, 'cause _he's_ a lunatic when it comes to training, too. He thinks the best way to do water walking practice is to make me avoid cooking myself in the hot springs!

"He kept makin' me do that over and over until I looked all boiled red and he called it quits for the day an' when we were leaving we ran into Ero-sennin—"

"Jiraiya-sama—" Sakura interrupted, as an explanation.

"—Ero-sennin fleeing from the bathhouse, an' he had dropped a notebook he had been writing in, and it had a bunch of kanji in it I couldn't read but both of them looked ready to drop dead when I was looking at it, especially when Ebisu figured it was Ero-sennin's!" He stopped to laugh at that, before cutting it off promptly, to make a face. "So 'cause of that Ebisu thinks I'm illiterate and 'would be an embarrassment of a chūnin' but he also won't tell me what most of those kanji even meant. So they're _both_ perverts," he concluded. "But because of my match they won't teach me anything _really_ cool, but I might get to learn fuinjutsu if Ero-sennin decides my reading skills don't suck anymore."

Ino's mother coughed lightly. "Jiraiya-sama is a… very respected member of the village," she said. I was pretty sure that wasn't what she _actually_ wanted to say.

"Fuinjutsu," Ino murmured to herself. Her attention snapped onto Naruto with the same slightly too intense focused look as before. "Both the Nidaime and Yondaime were known for their fuinjutsu," she said. "I think the Sandaime is good at it too, since he's Jiraiya-sama's sensei _and_ was taught by the Nidaime."

"Eh?" went Naruto.

"Most shinobi aren't very skilled at fuinjutsu, but the ones who are and are able to use it in fights are rare and stand above their peers," Ino's mother explained, looking between her daughter and Naruto. "Yondaime-sama was infamous because of it. He was known as the Yellow Flash."

"Yeah, yeah, because he was so fast, right?" Naruto said. There was an eager look in his eyes, now.  
  
"Kakashi was his student," I said. I blinked. I wasn't sure why I had let that slip.

"What?!" Naruto's eyes widened. "I could have been asking him for cool stories about the Yondaime the whole time?"

"And Jiraiya-sama," Ino added, still staring at Naruto. "He's supposed to have _taught_ the Yondaime."

"Really?" His voice managed to crack, squeaking near the end, which made me look at him with caution. Naruto was beginning to look giddy and overwhelmed. He was starstruck, I realized, having a fanboy moment. "The Yondaime's my _favorite,_ " he announced to everyone.

Sakura glanced at Naruto with an impressive side eye, an unsure quirk to her mouth, before she finally spoke. "Naruto, calm down, we're in a hospital."

"But Sakura!"

This was apparently enough for Ino's mother to lay down the law. "Ino-chan needs to rest, before she has any more visitors come in. She's not supposed to get too stimulated." Her lips pursed together.

"Oh," Naruto went, deflating a bit. He rubbed the back of his neck, giving her an embarrassed grin. "Sorry." He turned his attention towards Ino and Sakura. "Sakura-chan, we'll leave, so you can stay with Ino, you know?"

Sakura looked torn, looking between us and Ino. "Are you sure? We haven't really spent that much time together since we all started training for the tournament."

"Stay," I said, much more sure than Naruto. "Ino needs you."

"Yeah!"

Sakura gave us a grateful look, at not being forced to choose. "Alright. I'll see you both later."

"Get better soon, yeah, Ino?" Naruto directed at her.

Ino managed a smile. "I'll try."

"I'll go with you guys to the stairs. I'm supposed to have therapy soon anyways," Chōji said, folding the top of his chip bag over and tucking it against the left arm of the wheelchair. He made a face. "I'm barely allowed to walk, but they're still making me exercise!" He waved to Ino.

I opened the door, as wide as it could go.

In the hallway, Iruka and Inoichi were still speaking, a distance away from the door, but they stopped and turned immediately.

"Leaving already?" Iruka asked.

Naruto grinned, almost self-conscious looking. "I'm too loud."

"Ino's being all intense like she's been getting since she woke up and Suzuka-ba's getting emotional again," Chōji elaborated. "So's Sakura."

"I should go check on her again before I have to leave," Inoichi said. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes, massaging at it briefly.

"You said it yourself, she'll be fine with time," Iruka said, setting an assuring hand on the older man's shoulder. "Between Chōji and me, we can keep her company so you and your wife can get some actual rest. You shouldn't be spending _every_ moment not working here."

Inoichi managed a smile, slight as it was over all of the fatigue. "And it's saying something if I'm getting lectured by an Academy sensei, right." He looked over at us, and tilted his head slightly towards Iruka. "Even once you become chūnin, remember that Academy sensei are picked for a reason."

"How hard is it?" I wasn't able to resist asking.

"It's a very different set of standards from making jōnin, but it's much harder to become a sensei at the Academy than to become a jōnin," Inoichi explained.

"I wouldn't say _that_ …" Iruka rubbed the back of his neck, and both it and his embarrassed grin were exactly the same as Naruto's earlier, I realized with a start.

"Because they can have a large influence on their students?" I asked, looking between Iruka and Naruto.

Chōji tried to cover his mouth to hide the snort. He had caught it too.

Naruto looked around at everyone, completely confused. "Huh? What's so funny?"

Inoichi must have put it together as well, since he was looking slightly upwards, his face carefully still with the practice of someone used to _not_ laughing at children.

"Maybe you'll figure out when you're older," I said.

Iruka stifled a laugh now, pulling his arm away from his neck. "You don't need to tease him, Sasuke. But yes, we're held to much higher standards, in some ways." Just like real teachers and the certifications and background checks they needed, but I doubted Iruka had to shell out for all of that. At least I hoped not. That would just be too depressingly realistic. Or would it be.

Naruto made a face at me, but brightened up immediately. "Really? Then why aren't you a jōnin yet?"

Iruka mouthed 'yet' to himself, before shaking his head. "It's different standards, and most of us at the academy don't really have the chance to work on our skills enough to make jōnin, if we were even able to make it. I'm more than fine being a chūnin. Besides, I'd need a hand for that." He managed to force a grin.

Naruto groaned, and dragged his hands down his face. "Stop doing that! It isn't funny!"

Chōji grimaced slightly.

It was still kind of funny.

Inoichi seemed to find it amusing, too, at least a little, but this little gathering in the hallway was beginning to attract disapproving glances and staring from a few medic-nin and nurses, and he coughed lightly. "You two should get going," he said, to me and Naruto, before turning to Chōji. "Thank you for waiting with me earlier, Chōji-kun."

Chōji gave an abashed look, before looking away. "Tou-san says we're supposed to be there for each other, and it's Ino, and…"

"Shikamaru will figure things out eventually," Inoichi told him.

"He's gotta get being stupid out of the way, first," Naruto said with confidence. It wasn't even that wrong, kind of. "But yeah! Bye Chōji! Bye Iruka-sensei! Bye Inoichi-ji!"

Naruto sped off to the stairs, giving me just long enough to catch Inoichi's reaction before I followed; he looked completely caught off guard by _that_ sudden appellation being given to him.

"Bye," I said, feeling self-conscious. I quickly escaped down the stairs.

Naruto was bouncing on the balls of his feet, impatiently waiting for me at the stairwell level for the ground floor.

"Hurry up, I'm _starving_ ," he said, exhaling finally.

"Then why didn't you get yourself something to eat when we had the chance?" I asked.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Because it was important to Sakura-chan!" His stomach growled, loudly, and his eyes widened. "Also I didn't think about that, earlier," he added.

I shook my head slightly. "Fine, let's get food."

He cheered, and we left the hospital, only to suddenly come to a stop just outside.

Gaara was standing in front of the hospital, staring intently at Naruto. Temari and Kankurō were there as well, looking extremely awkward.

I glanced at them, and then Naruto, who looked slightly quizzical, before he grinned.

"Gaara!"

"Naruto-kun," Gaara responded, still staring. "You were in the hospital."

"Yeah, we were visiting people," Naruto answered, walking over. "What are you guys doing?"

What the hell was _this_ about?

I looked at Temari and Kankurō, as if they would somehow have any answers for _this_ unexpected turn, but I was left at a loss. Both looked unsure of this, uneasy.

"We're supposed to be meeting our father and Baki-sensei," Temari said. "Remember, Gaara?" There was a half-wheedling note to her voice, tinted with repressed frustration. After years of watching people between time as a university student and my old job, I had become very familiar with the sort of tone people had in their voices when they were trying to not reveal to the person they were speaking with the fact they wanted to scream because of them.

"I wanted to see Naruto-kun," Gaara answered, dismissing what she said entirely.

"Yeah, it's funny we met each other out here, isn't it?"

I really doubted this was coincidence. Not when Gaara had all of his attention on Naruto.

"Were you stalking him?" I asked.

Kankurō suddenly stepped back and to the side, grimacing even as he shook his head up and down in confirmation; Temari also similarly split away, creating a bubble of space that left Gaara, Naruto, and me at the center of it.

Gaara's attention snapped onto me, eyes intensely locked on mine without blinking. "Why does it matter to you?"

I felt sand grit lightly against my toes. There wasn't any wind.

"He's just trying to be friendly, Sasuke." Naruto sounded put out.

" _Stalking_ people isn't 'friendly' behavior," I said, keeping my attention focused on Gaara. It felt important to not let myself get distracted and look away. "Whatever it is you want, you're not going to get it acting like _this_. Unless you think making Kankurō look like he's about to piss himself whenever you do something is going to make you friends."

"Hey!"

"I don't care about him," Gaara answered. "I want to know more about _Naruto._ "

Naruto's fidgeting brushed against me. "Uh… isn't he your older brother? Why wouldn't you care about him? You have a _family._ " Naruto's confusion was mixed with an edge of longing.

Gaara's attention, so weirdly piercing, switched to Naruto.

"Why should I care about him? I could crush him right now."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could make out Kankurō slowly backing away more than he had already.

"Just because you can doesn't mean you should," I told him, folding my arms together. I felt like I was having to explain things to a toddler. One with more capacity for destruction than real toddlers had. "Saying and showing you don't care about people isn't going to get you real friends. It won't let you _keep_ any for long, anyways."

Gaara blinked.

"Yeah," Naruto agreed. "There's a bunch of people who are awful jerks! It felt like for ages everyone was mean to me for no reason and treated me like I was a monster. I was alone. No one was allowed to play with me when I was a kid," said the twelve year old child. "But there were still a few people who were nice to me, like our Academy sensei. And I've even been making friends since I became a genin. It's great!"

"A monster…" It wasn't quite a whisper, but Gaara was still saying it to himself, eyes fixed on Naruto.

I had no interest in letting this become any more potentially depressing than it already was. "You're also a brat," I told Naruto. "That doesn't help."

"What? I've gotten better!"

For a moment that felt like it stretched out, no one said anything, the only thing preventing it from being completely silent was the ambient noise of everything around us, the occasional passerby focusing on their own lives. Even in a dream I couldn't pretend that the world would stop for a bunch of kids.

The terrible edge of dread slowly dulled, Gaara's attention shifting from predatory to something else, if just as hungry in a different way.

"I… want to be friends," he said, the words coming out slow and unsure.

Naruto's stomach let out a loud growl of protest.

I had not expected this to end up with us eating ramen with the Sand siblings, but that was how it turned out, somehow.

The seating arrangement turned out interesting, in a dumb way. Because the stall had been empty when we showed up, somehow Temari and Kankurō had managed to finagle it for Gaara to be seated against the wall, Naruto more than happy to sit next to him. I couldn't tell if it was out of a sense of guilt or protectiveness, but Temari sat on Naruto's other side. Kankurō had skipped that seat entirely, leaving me between him and his sister.

I couldn't exactly blame him, after earlier. He kept shooting furtive glances down the counter at Naruto and Gaara, as though he wasn't entirely sure what had just happened.

Naruto was happily chattering at Gaara— _with_ winding explanations I could occasionally make out about why something was something you were supposed to do for friends or how Naruto had made a friend or saw others making friends— when the noren separating the inside of he stall from the outside was pushed open, letting in a stream of outside light.

"Kazekage-sama, we found them!"

Temari and Kankurō froze mid-action, Kankurō sputtering on his noodles, and Naruto stopped talking. After a second, Temari slowly set her chopsticks down.

On the other side of the counter, Teuchi paused in checking something I couldn't see.

The noren pushed aside again, and I turned.

Green hat with the kanji for 'wind'. Robes. A fringe of messy auburn hair just barely visible, and an expression that was more resting bitch face than anything, though it clearly held expectations of being ready to be disappointed on his face. He looked like both of his sons, to a degree that made me realize how much Kankurō's makeup made it _less_ obvious. The Sand Siblings' father— whose name I was completely blanking on— didn't strike me as much an imposing figure as being a stern one already expecting people— in this case, his _children_ — to fall short of his demands.

"I was expecting to present the three of you to the Hokage," the man said, narrowing his attention on Temari. It was the same gaze Gaara had just before.

Temari shrunk in on herself for a moment, just the slightest, but didn't cringe, before composing herself again. "Chichi-ue," she started, "Gaara made a friend."

"Gaara made a friend," the Kazekage repeated after her, and his eyes swept over us again, eyes first pausing on me, before they reached Naruto. He apparently hadn't entirely processed the seating order, or who was in here, all of his attention immediately on his eldest child.

"Yeah. Me. I'm Uzumaki Naruto," Naruto said; his shoulders were set in determination, eyes squinting upwards at the new adult in the same space as him with suspicion, the same look as he had given pretty much everyone at the hospital he had deemed strangers. For all his bravado and occasional cluelessness, Naruto was mostly distrusting of adults. Being a kage apparently didn't exempt the Sand Siblings' father automatically. "I'm gonna be Hokage someday."

"The Uzumaki boy Baki mentioned," the Kazekage said out loud, half to himself, as his eyes fell on me. "And the last Uchiha that Konohagakure can claim for itself. Your final teammate, and your jōnin-sensei must be elsewhere. It isn't very often that genin from one village become notable enough for the leaders of multiple hidden villages to be made aware of them."

The tension in the small space ratcheted up a few notches as I tried to untangle that. Multiple. Was I overthinking this— the whole dream was an exercise in how much my poor head could force itself into making things more and more complicated— and the importance of choosing that word? The third Hokage. Zabuza. Him. Few enough that just saying three would suffice. Unless it was more. Could it be?

"Yeah, well, like I said," Naruto said. He was refusing to back down, like usual.

No one said anything.

The silence was broken by Teuchi. "Kazekage-sama, would you like to take a seat? I would be honored if you did. The first bowl is free, for you and your children."

The Kazekage looked at all of us for a long moment, before turning to speak over his shoulder, presumably to one of his people. "You're dismissed. I will see you all at the inn." He removed his hat, and sat down next to Kankurō, who looked like he regretted his choice of seating now.

Even with food to serve as a social lubricant, it didn't make it much less tense, or awkward. If anything, it made it moreso, as it still took time for the Kazekage to receive his order.

Naruto seemed to take the Kazekage's presence as a challenge to ignore him, and instead continued to chatter— more almost _viciously_ happy than with his usual cheer— at Gaara, who listened to him intently. Kankurō looked miserable and Temari ate with her back ramrod straight.

Noodles did _not_ solve everything.

Even Naruto couldn't make this drag on, and he looked sulky when we exited; at some point he somehow had decided he needed to keep himself between Gaara and the Kazekage even _after_ they were no longer seated inside the ramen stall. Gaara's siblings and father seemed to be at a loss at how to even take that.

"You're gonna be here until after the tournament is over, right?" Naruto asked Gaara, who gave only the barest nod. He eyed the Kazekage. "I wish we could spend more time together, but I've still got a bunch of training…"

"I'm surprised you're not suggesting a sleepover," I muttered.

Naruto's eyes widened, and I immediately regretted that. "Hey! Hey! Yeah! You can spend the night at my place!"

"Are you _trying_ to—" Kankurō started to choke out, and Temari looked alarmed.

The Kazekage cut Kankurō off, staring at Naruto as though that would give him any insight. "He is supposed to stay with his siblings."

"I don't mind! They can stay too!"

Gaara ignored his family entirely, focused on Naruto. "Okay."

The strangled wail Kankurō made merged into the noise of my alarm going off.

* * *

I swiped the alarm off on my phone with a groan. I felt awful, but not as bad as I did the other day. Nothing I hadn't dealt with before, but just as well. While my first class on Mondays wasn't until later, and my advisor was supposed to be off at a conference so we wouldn't be meeting until Friday, there was still going to be a speaker giving a lecture on oral storytelling and how they were changed by being written down that I was interested in attending, and that was going to be this morning, as part of an all-day event hosted by the Chicano Studies program. Maybe I would go to some of the other panels, after my class was over, since I wasn't going to therapy today.

I felt more alive after showering, though the ache at the base my neck still hadn't worked itself out. Still on one side, it meant I was probably going to have to see if I could massage it out later. Rather than deal with my blow dryer or straightener, I brushed my hair out and put it up into a bun, the professional solution to getting away with being lazy.

I was able to put the dreams out of mind entirely, and felt actually happy and content by the time I left the library basement auditorium. I had a nice coffee from my favorite place, I had even eaten a burrito for breakfast, I got to have a second, free coffee, and even a free muffin to enjoy while I occasionally jotted down notes from the speaker's presentation.

"Hey, Socorro!" someone called, before I reached the elevator.

I turned to look. Awkward, gangly white boy in his mid-twenties, in the plaid button-down shirt and khaki pants that was practically a uniform for the self-conscious. It took me a second to pin him down before I remembered who he was; a first year grad student, like me, but he had started this semester. While he wasn't in the English department, he was with Classical Studies, and had told a very long, rambling and boring story about how he had discovered his love for Latin and the classics through anime, somehow. I had tuned most of it out and had forgotten his name by now.

Apparently he hadn't forgotten mine.

I made an attempt to smile. I knew for a fact I had grabbed everything I had with me, thrown out my trash, and had shown approximately no interest in his plans as a grad student or human being before this. I had no idea what he wanted. "Hi?"

"I didn't know you were interested in anime," he started, leaning slightly back on his heels.

"Huh?" I felt very intelligent right now. What had prompted this? If anything, as far as I knew, I should have the _opposite_ reputation; I had gotten a good chunk of the university's anime club kicked off of campus after I found out a bunch of them who were actually from the community college were harassing and stalking a girl a few months ago.

"Well, your tattoo," whatever-his-name was said. "At the base of your neck. It looks like, uh… Because of _Naruto_ , right?"

I didn't have tattoos. I had exactly a single piercing in each ear and had never bothered to get more. Even my makeup was tame. I was reasonably sure that if I even thought of getting a tattoo my abuela would die of shame and then I'd get disowned by my mother, or similar, nevermind actually _getting_ one.

"Uh, no," I said. I resisted the urge to reach for the spot my neck hurt. I was suddenly, horribly aware that the spot that ached was the same that got bit in the dream the other night.

"Oh," he said, sounding deflated. "So, um, I don't have anything to do for awhile and I was wondering if, you know, if you didn't either, if you'd like to go get a coffee or lunch or something…"

"Sorry, I'm busy," I said, before he could continue embarrassing _both_ of us. "I'll see you at the next association meeting. I've got to go."

I left as fast as I could, leaving his awkward farewell behind me.

Inside the basement level women's bathroom— tiny, cramped, and only meant for a single person— I dropped my cane and pulled my phone out, trying to get a look at the back of my neck in the mirror without twisting around too much. I yanked my shirt collar back.

The reflection in the mirror, using the phone's front camera to get a look, showed three tomoe marks. Freshly black against my skin. Rubbing and scrubbing at it water and soap with my hand, and then with the crappy brown paper towels from the dispenser, did nothing except make the skin grow slowly angry and raw.

I didn't have tattoos, except, apparently, I did.

This was impossible, except, apparently, that didn't matter anymore.

Was I going insane?

It had to be pen, or Sharpie, or something. I was already missing hours, waking up and not remembering.

It had to be.

I skipped class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a breather of sorts, but there's plenty lurking under the surface, and plenty of information. I wonder what everyone's picked up on? ;)
> 
> Next chapter is... the tournament itself!  
> As a fun thing, anyone who can make the closest and accurate guess for who wins what matches, I'll write a ficlet for, set in this fic's universe, within reason (nothing that will seriously spoil the future plot). The following is what will be round one, and how those matches will break down beyond the initial match.
> 
> _**Round One:**_  
> 
> 
> **Match One:** Sakura vs Shigure  
>  **Match Two:** Shino vs Neji
> 
>  **Match Three:** Sasuke vs Chojuro  
>  **Match Four:** Midare vs Lee
> 
>  **Match Five:** Kiba vs Suigetsu  
>  **Match Six:** Shikamaru vs Hinata
> 
>  **Match Seven:** Baiu vs Tenten  
>  **Match Eight:** Haku vs Naruto
> 
>   
>  _  
>  **Round Two:**   
>  _   
> 
> 
> **Match A:** Match One Victor vs Match Two Victor  
>  **Match B:** Match Three Victor vs Match Four Victor
> 
>  **Match C:** Match Five Victor vs Match Six Victor  
>  **Match D:** Match Seven Victor vs Match Eight Victor
> 
> _  
> **Round Three (Semifinals)**  
> _  
> 
> 
> **Semifinalist One:** Match A Victor vs Match B Victor  
>  **Semifinalist Two:** Match C Victor vs Match D Victor  
>  **  
>  **
> 
>   
>  _**Finals: ******_ ****  
>  ** **
> 
> **  
>  **  
>  **Overall Victor**   
>  **   
>  **
> 
> I've made attempts to try and make it as clear as possible how the tournament matches will flow for each round. Fill out your brackets with the assumption that the tournament will finish, but the ones that are the most 'correct' up to where it's interrupted will be able to claim their ficlet next chapter.


End file.
